Бесплатный фрагмент - Confession of a Ghost

CONFESSION OF A GHOST

          or “BEFORE and AFTER. 40 STEPS of NON – EXISTENCE.

                               MATRIX of the SPACE of TIME”

             a novel in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series,

     the winner of the following literary competitions and awards:

                            ·  “The ORTHODOX SOUL” 2022

    (Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia

                              with NP “Literary Republic”)

  ·  F.M. DOSTOEVSKY, “LIFE SUFFOCATES WITHOUT A GOAL” 2021

      (Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia)

                   ·  “RUSSIA-GREECE. The 21st Century” 2020

            within the framework of the Russia-Greece Cross Year

                         of Language and Culture 2019–2020

                                    (NP “Literary Republic”)

              ·  D.L. ANDREEV, “CREATOR of the WORLDS” 2019

                              (Open Literary Club “Response”)

ABOUT THE BOOK

S. Il. Rudakova, “Another Reality is the prose of our life”

The prose of Alexandra Kryuchkova amazes with the art of mastering the Word, the natural spirituality of the events described, the original author’s style, not abstruse, but natural penetration into Another Reality, which is intertwined with the earthly reality in the journey of the soul, led through the labyrinths of destiny by its Guardian Angel.

The novel “Confession of a Ghost”, a book with a surprisingly delicate interweaving of the threads of a unique canvas, wonderful literary language and self-irony of the author, with a non-standard plot and an unpredictable ending in which “all guns go off”, intrigues from the moment you read the annotation.

The novel was very accurately described by Vladimir G. Boyarinov, Chairman of the Moscow city organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, during the awarding Alexandra Kryuchkova with the F. M. Dostoevsky Prize “Life suffocates without a goal”,

“Today we have the presentation of Alexandra Kryuchkova, a writer, poet, mystic, philosopher… and her book we have already written about, ‘Confession of a Ghost’. And it’s in a new cover, because this is another edition, since the book is a real boom, a boom in the book market, which we have not seen for a long time! Alexandra Kryuchkova never ceases to amaze us, summoning heralds of her mystical discoveries for revelations. The Ghost lurking under the new cover is no longer just broadcasting, it confesses its truths.”

Yes, exactly, the truths! Since it’s about the inevitable triumph of the human Spirit, the Forces of Light and Good.

“A modern novel, but it’s timeless as well. It contains many wise thoughts, if not truths. It is light and deep at the same time. Fabulous and realistic. There are no idealized characters and axioms in it, but it radiates the invisible light of the Other World. While reading, in parallel and somehow automatically, you revise your life, taking that very step aside. One gets the values revised and an irresistible desire for radical changes in one’s own matrix.”

V. V. Morozov

And let the reader not be afraid of the fact that we are on the territory of Another Reality unknown to us!

“Obviously, the author is engaged in the study of Another Reality with a methodical approach close to scientific, and her work in this area, as well as on the paradoxical properties of the Word, is comparable to the activities of an entire scientific research institute… The path of a mortal, prescribed in Heaven, seems fatally predetermined, however, the author reveals the possibilities of the Spirit in the most incorrigible circumstances and, together with representatives of the Forces of Light, extends a helping hand to all her readers!”

V. G. Shyltzin

At the same time, the language of all characters, even ghosts, is equally precise and understandable to the reader, despite the use by the author of a special vocabulary of spiritual, astrological, esoteric and other specific terms. It is amazing how easily the thread of Ariadne unfolds in search of truth and love, and the more attractive is to try on the stories of the main character Alice and find your own too.

“It would seem to be a combination of the incompatible — icons and the starry Sky, the experiences of a living person and a wandering soul, our reality and its other dimensions, hidden behind the words ‘somewhere in the Universe’. In simple and understandable words, the author makes it possible to realize the structure of the Universe and ‘become conscious’ in our reality. The earthly destiny of the main character, stories from the Library of the Universe, conversations with planetary spirits, a journey through the Spheres, walks on Athos and conversations with its inhabitants are intricately interwoven into a single narrative with an original plot and an unpredictable denouement!”

V. V. Morozov

However, the novel got noticed back in 2019, after its first edition under the title “Before and After. 40 steps of Non-existence, or the Matrix of Time Space. Confession of a Ghost”, and the reviews of the first readers were included in the preface to the second edition.

“This novel is an event in literature. The novel-symphony. The genius novel (I’m not afraid of this word!). So multifaceted and polyphonic that I got scary — what if something (with such a volume) would not link into a single whole. But each thread is woven into the carpet so harmoniously, subtly, logically and in such a simple human language that it causes sincere admiration and respect! I read it twice. The first time — in pursuit of the plot, like a mystical detective, excitedly, I could not stop, and then I breathed out and re-read it slowly, savoring the details. Having reached a certain phrase of the Guardian, suddenly, I got an insight! — I realized my destiny on Earth! My whole life scrolled instantly, and I realized what I was doing here! I wanted to cry with happiness! I thank the author for her Word, that awakens us from sleep and works such miracles!”

E.V. Erofeeva-Litvinskaya

Miracles are always around, but we often don’t pay attention to them. The prose by A. Kryuchkova is not just wonderful, but musical and cinematic. Sooner or later, Alexandra’s novels and stories will be filmed, I’m sure, and I’m not the only one.

“The author not just knows the world of the Other Space well, but masters it perfectly, lives in it, feels like a fish in water and is a real fount of knowledge. The further along you read, the more obvious the autobiographical style appears, along with talented and very light fantasy techniques. Thankfully, the dark and evil takes up less space in the novel! This is a kindly light book, without vulgarity and dirt. For those who prefer real literature, who are ready to discover something new, look at the world with an inquisitive eye, to experience and co-feel, to read between the lines and draw the appropriate conclusions for themselves… Moonlight Sonata, the background music, is used very successfully! Sounding almost imperceptibly at first, it gradually reaches a crescendo and covers you with your head… In general, the plot is so multifaceted that it creates confidence in the necessity to publish the book not only in our country, but abroad as well! And even better, with a film version!”

In. K. Butorina

The cover of the first edition of the novel was the “Ladder” icon painted on Athos (in Greece) with the blessing especially for this book, and in August 2019 the first version of the novel (subsequently edited and shortened by the author) was handed over by A. Kryuchkova with a dedicatory inscription to Archimandrite Evlogii (Ivanov), the head of the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon on Athos, to the local history museum of Ouranoupoli and to the house-museum of the local poetess and writer Joice Mary NanKivell Loch (one of the characters).

“The close connection with Orthodox childhood and later heartfelt love for Greek Athos is also reflected in the novel ‘Confession of a Ghost’, the central part of which is occupied by Athos stories and stories of local residents, as well as stories about the Saints and the wonders of their icons, recorded by the author during her trips to Ouranoupoli village, situated on the border with the Holy Mountain.”

M. Palshyna

Alexandra Kryuchkova was deservedly awarded the diploma as “the initiator and participant of the ‘Russia-Greece. The 21st Century’ project within the framework of the Russia-Greece Cross Year of Language and Culture 2019—2020” for the novel “Confession of a Ghost”, dedicated to the Athos peninsula and the Holy Mountain in Greece, as well as “for contribution to development of international relations in the field of culture and literature” (NP “Literary Republic”, 2020).

“This book is a window to Another Reality. It’s full of Universal Love and gives hope to everyone who truly believes in it. The plot is really captivating, you try to unravel the tangle with the main character, but it keeps you in suspense to the last, slipping out of your hands… The reading is easy and interesting. The main characters become so native that the reader wants to go to Athos, enter the Dark Tower and chat with the ghost of Joice over a cup of astral tea.”

Ir. A. Antonova

In 2019, “Confession of a Ghost” was awarded Daniil Andreev Prize “Creator of the Worlds” by the Open Literary Club “Response”. The head of the club, Lyudmila Koroleva, a member of the Union of Writers of Russia, at the awarding the diploma and a name-plated statuette to the author, spoke of the “Confession” as follows,

“There are books that belong to eternity, and this is one of them… Such novels are not to be forgotten. You can re-read them at different periods of life and find something new. Perhaps the main character… remained behind the scenes. He silently watches the reader from the sky and smiles at the author.”

However, this novel has already been compared with Daniil Andreev by German Arutyunov and Vadim Shiltzyn. Sergey Bersenev (Vice-President of the Moscow Region department of the Union of Writers of Russia, Head of the Creative Center “Clouds of Inspiration”, Honored Writer of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia) honored Alexandra with a diploma of Leonid and Daniil Andreev as the winner of the competition “Another Reality” for her novel “The Island of Charon”, and all the books by A. Kryuchkova on the theme of Another Reality is close in spirit to “The Rose of the World”. At the 2021 literary contests awarding ceremony of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, together with the NP “Literary Republic”, A. Kryuchkova was announced the winner of the “Writer of the 21st century” competition in the nomination of Daniil Andreev for the book series “Playing Another Reality”, and a year earlier, for the same series she had been awarded the medal “For contribution to the Literature of Russia of the 21st century” (the decision of the Board of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia dated 16 January 2020).

Aesop-like mysterious, the works of Alexandra Kryuchkova, fortunately, exist in our reality. All her books, despite the tragic plots and the veil of death, are written for the glory of life and are permeated with the Divine Love, they direct the reader to light and goodness, leaving after reading the spiritual lightness and joy from contact with the magic of creativity!

Moreover, Another Reality is the truth of our life, thus in conclusion I’ll quote the author’s postscript to “Confession of a Ghost”,

“When you are on Athos in Ouranoupoli, find Dimitra and ask her to show you the place on the wall in her shop, where the icon of St. Peter with the keys has been materialized.”

Svetlana Il. Rudakova,

Member of the Union of Writers of Russia

The newspaper “Literary news“ №1 (199), 2022

G. Arutyunov, “F.M. Dostoevsky Award 2021”

“Confessions of a Ghost” — a unique novel of its kind, which encourages you to reflect on the topics of Another Reality and earthly visions of the soul, posthumous existence and mortal time, to think, walking with the author along her Heavenly Staircase up and down, over what in general you don’t think — was awarded F.M. Dostoevsky prize “Life suffocates without a goal” 2021 by the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia.

And here is mysticism (which is what happens with mystical books, by the way) — the sheet with my notes disappeared, as soon as I decided to write a review. The same thing happened to me a few years ago with Daniil Andreev’s book “The Rose of the World”. Both books (“Confession of a Ghost” and “Rose of the World”) are similar, since their authors describe visiting worlds and spaces that probably exist, manifesting only in human consciousness, like life after death — in a transformed individual consciousness or in the Universal cosmic mind (or bank of information). And it’s amazing that each of us after death can find ourselves in a unique space that opens only to him. In any case, neither before nor after Daniil Andreev, as far as I know, there were no eyewitnesses to the worlds he described. As never before I met the eyewitnesses to the worlds and spaces of Alexandra Kryuchkova. Although, probably, such specific areas are open to those like Daniil and Alexandra, not to everyone. Apparently, this is due to our lifetime interests and knowledge, which is what paves our way there.

So, the main character of the “Confession”, incarnating on Earth, passes the Heavenly Staircase through the corridors of 12 astrological Houses, symbolizing the Spheres of life in the Labyrinth of Destiny, and then returns to Heaven along the same Staircase, but in a completely different way — through the Orthodox Greek Athos, since the author clearly knows astrology and lived on the border with the Holy Mountain. However, some Saint, like St. Anthony, having read during his lifetime stories about devils and monsters that tempt a person and observing them in his dreams, after death probably continues to see them and fight with them. During 30 years of my work in the “Nature and Man” magazine as the supervisor of editorial publications on anomalous and spiritual topics, I repeatedly had to deal with similar visions (or revelations) of various Saints, but we did not publish them, because there was no link to reality. And the visions of a person and his real life, as a rule, are closely interconnected.

At first glance, fixing individual worlds is just as useless as the movements of a shaman who causes rain with his dance around the fire, with beats of a tambourine, shouts or chants, waving his hands, bouncing and body movements that are relevant only here and now. Tomorrow everything will be different – the weather, the soil, the fire, the shaman. Nevertheless, some people fix such moments, as Alexandra Kryuchkova recorded 40 steps of her Heavenly Staircase while moving along it in both directions. I believe that fixation has a hidden meaning.

The architect Brunelleschi left no drawings for the construction of the dome of the famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. They say that the master didn’t use drawings at all (as any shaman has no texts with him during the ceremony). Fortunately, one of Brunelleschi’s enemies, who envied his talent, watched the construction every day and secretly recorded all the stages and even the conversations of the masters and workers in his papers, thanks to which modern scientists restored the stages of construction step by step and discovered an incredible for our time fact — every day Brunelleschi compared several points of the growing dome of the cathedral with the projection of a flower bud, close to the golden ratio. Some information that scrolls through us may seem unnecessary, too fleeting, short-lived, or unbelievable to want to fix it. But if we succeed (or the soul demands it), it’s quite possible that sooner or later this information will come in handy. Not for us, but for someone who will stand on our shoulders and see what we don’t see yet and therefore don’t appreciate.

Books with fixation of the worlds and spaces of Another Reality, such as “Rose of the World” by D. Andreev and “Confession of a Ghost” by A. Kryuchkova, are needed to maintain at least a minimum level of sacrality in the society, otherwise humanity, with its predictable striving for comfort and pleasures, will become uninteresting to the Higher Mind, and either the asteroid will lead the planet to the flood that will wash mankind away, or the flood will be caused by volcanoes, which someone blocks now. Do you remember Jules Verne’s captain Nemo on his Nautilus going around underwater volcanoes (centers of activity) to put some kind of stabilizers?

Each our life is a rung on the Staircase of manifestation, an opportunity to gain a certain experience in order to enrich the thinking ocean of humanity. Perhaps, after passing through one labyrinth in this space, we’ll be switched to another and in a different one, in order to gouge spiritual galleries in the corridor of consciousness in various directions.

The Theory of Time, touched upon by Alexandra Kryuchkova in the novel, collides the Past, the Present and the Future. Time takes us beyond the boundaries of three-dimensional space, but each one at its own speed, in its own measured rhythm, that has become a unique personal code for many incarnations, allowing the Heavenly Office (or Higher Mind) to track an individual without confusing him with the others, among 107 billion people who have ever lived on Earth throughout the history of mankind, to switch automatically from one level to another, to change the direction of movement and make stops so as not to cross paths with someone or vice versa — to meet someone.

It’s also relevant the theme of the spiritual loneliness of creative people for whom Internet communication is not enough, while unanimity is important, since any stranger’s thought that is close to yours warms you like a flame of a candle or even a fire.

As for postmortem visions, the Egyptian Book of the Dead is closer to me personally, but “Confession of a Ghost” will definitely find its reader, thinking in the same information space. And the more often we probe the connections of the material world with the spiritual world, the faster we’ll reach the Age of Enlightenment, in which the spiritual life will become the reality of the overwhelming majority.

German Arutyunov,

Journalist, researcher of abnormal phenomena,

member of the Union of Journalists and of the Union of Writers of Russia,

founder of the Centre for Spiritual Development “Sphinx”

The newspaper “Literary news” №9 (195), 2021

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V. G. Shyltzyn, “The Rose of the Universe”

If it were possible to classify literature, then “The Island of Charon” by Alexandra Kryuchkova would be quite logical to put on the same shelf with “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The reverent attitude to the miracle of being and the models of interconnections, built from internal causes and stretched throughout the entire Universe, look similar in these authors, despite the difference in their initial circumstances and diametrically opposite endings.

Those critics who compare the prose of Alexandra Kryuchkova with Daniil Andreev are also right. The multitude of the worlds and parallel universes reflected in his “Rose of the World” could as well include the constructions found in her novel “Confession of a Ghost” and in the story “The Island of Charon”. The power of logical dependencies, filigreed by Kryuchkova, makes these works no less plausible than the philosophical bestseller of the famous mystic.

Alexandra Kryuchkova’s prose built an invisible bridge between two previously unconnected authors of the past. “The Little Prince“ of Exupery took care of the rose, and the universal phenomenon of Daniil Andreev also turned out to be a rose, but for him it was already the “Rose of the World“. Taking up the relay race of generations, Alexandra Kryuchkova invisibly and delicately takes care of the very same rose.

Vadim G. Shiltzyn,

member of the Union of Writers of Russia,

laureate of literary awards

The newspaper “Poetograd” No. 4 (400), 2022

http://www.poetograd.ru/arch.html

http://www.poetograd.ru/nomer.php?id=30662

https://reading-hall.ru/publication.php?id=30662

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L. Ya. Reznik, “Nobel Prize Award in Literature”

A. Kryuchkova was nominated for the Nobel Prize Award in Literature 2023 by Eugeny V. Stepanov, doctor of philology, poet, CEO & President of the Union of Writers of the 21st Century, and by Vladimir G. Boyarinov, poet, Honored worker of culture of Russia, CEO of the Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia.

Leonid Yakovlevich Reznik,

Honored worker of culture of Russia, Honored writer of the MCO of the Union of Writers of Russia, Director of Moscow School of Arts after Yu. S. Saulsky

“The Book of Memories” 2022, ISBN 978-5-7949-0958-6, M.: — Moscow City Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, NP “Literary Republic”, 2022 — 238 p.

Newspaper “Literary News” / “Literaturnye Izvestia” No. 01 (211), 2023, S. Kiulin, “A. Kryuchkova has chances to get Nobel Prize Award 2023 for the books of prose”.

DIALOGUE-TV:

* “Books review” No. 5/ January 2023 by O. Efimova.

* “Books review” No. 44/ June 30, 2023 by  E.V. Stepanov.

Russian Post, the letter No. RO100595262RU.

Newspaper “Poetograd” No. 01 (409), 2023, F. Maltzev, “Alexandra Kryuchkova can get Nobel Prize Award”.

“21 Writers of the 21st Century”, V. V. Pavlov, ISBN 978-5-6049510-6-4, M. — NP “Literary Republic”, 2023 — 212 p.

Magazine “Literary Moscow” No. 01 (03), 2023, ISBN 978-5-6049510-4-0, M. — NP “Literary Republic”, 2023 — 100 p.

The Union of Writers of the 21st Century web: A. Kryuchkova

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This book is dedicated to

· Ouranoupoli,

my favorite village

located on the border with the Holy Mountain Athos (Greece),

and its residents;

· Joice Mary NanKivell Loch,

a famous writer and a character of this novel;

· my Greek friends:

Dimitra Drosinos, Dimitris, Sofia,

Stylianos Drosinos & Nataly,

Nikoleta Firai & Nikos Ladgeris,

Roula, Kiriaki & her father,

Janis Antonakis, Leah, Souzanna,

Julia & Janis,

Socrates, Vasilios, Apostolis,

Efi & all Kokkinos family,

Maria Riga,

George Kiriakou,

Nikitas Martigakis;

· as well as to:

the Forces of Light,

Ray, Svetlana, Vadim,

Lubov M. Anisenkova,

Sergey M. Makarenkov

and other characters of my Matrix…

CONFESSION OF A GHOST

PROLOGUE

Somewhere in the Universe

How long did I sleep? We were ONE.

“Wake up, my soul, it’s time for you to go.”

I came back from my dream, not remembering what I had dreamed about. Perhaps it was a dreamless dream. We were quickly moving along the endless corridors of Eternity towards one of the most important buildings in the Universe – the Heavenly Office, where everything earthly used to begin and end. I still didn’t know what would await me on Earth, but he instantly read my thoughts,

“Life in earthly body is short enough, Rukh. I am always there, remember me more often, and everything will be fine.”

“Will I be able to see you there?”

“You can feel me. We’ll continue to communicate in the same way – mentally, without words. It’s much more important than seeing with earthly eyes and hearing with earthly ears.”

***

We arrived at the Heavenly Office, witness to the ceaseless flow of souls, accompanied to Earth by their spirits – Guardian Angels. One of the Guards greeted us at the entrance to the building. He scanned everyone who came there and encouraged me,

“Enjoy your journey, Rukh, and have a happy return!”

We followed the corridors until my Guardian Angel stopped me at the door to the Astral Body Formation Hall, and he disappeared inside. In front of me in the queue, there was another Rukh, similar to me, like two peas in a pod – all incarnating ones before the formation of the astral body looked like white and fluffy lumps of pure energy of Light. Only the Guardians could tell us apart. The servants of the Chancellery in white robes were rushing past, busy as bees, paying no attention to us, the newcomers.

“Once upon a time they were incarnated on Earth too,” my neighbor whispered to me, “I wonder who they were.”

“Do you already know your destiny?” I asked.

“The Guardian does. The soul learns it descending the Stairs, reading the Creator’s plans for the incarnation, reflected in the Tablets and the heavenly passport. At the last step the passport is stamped and sealed. After returning to the Hall of Judges, the plan-fact reconciliation takes place, the verdicts are announced. That’s what the Guardian told me. However, the path is not predetermined rigidly, it can be changed within the Space of Options, limited by the records in one’s passport. Though, it’s a challenge to remember your plans on Earth! Everything is different there! Imagine having some arms, legs, a head, a torso! You’ll get inside the body and have to learn to control it! You’ll be forced to walk with your feet instead of moving in space with the power of thought. The earthly body constantly demands earthly food, not Light! And how many languages do they have? Almost every country has its own one, you can no longer communicate on Earth mentally!”

I was about to ask a couple of questions concerning the mysterious earthly body, but my neighbor was called to get formed, and my Guardian returned.

“Do you already know, Angel?”

“The Matrix of your Space of Options? Yes, but the actual path largely depends on your choice. Everyone has own cross, my soul. Life in the body is full of pain and suffering. Some have more, some have less.”

“Are you talking abstractly because you don’t want to upset me? I’ll find out for myself soon.”

“Undoubtedly. I promise to do my best to make your journey on Earth the best possible scenario. Try to remember the existence of me, the Heavenly World and its laws.”

***

We entered the twilight of the Astral Body Formation Hall, illuminated only by the light of stars, in the center of which there was a round stage with holographic signs, mathematical formulas and geometric drawings projected upon it.

“Now the Guardian of Time will announce the place and moment of your incarnation on Earth,” said my Angel. “The holograms will stop moving and display the initial location – the coordinates of the Cosmic Bodies in the 12 Spheres of your future life. Planetary spirits the formers will come upon the stage. You’ll perform with them your Dance of Destiny to the Music of the Spheres.”

“Dance? For what?”

“Each of the planetary spirits will provide you with the appropriate elements-atoms having their inherent characteristics for the formation of your astral body. The atoms don’t line up randomly, they form certain bonds with each other, depending on the aspects of the planets and stars at the moment of your incarnation. They create a unique pattern of the soul according to the Creator’s plan. The astral body — emotions and feelings — helps to communicate with the Subtle World on Earth and influences the physical body. During the dance, the chroniclers fix the celestial coordinates in the Tablets, the starting points of your Matrix of Destiny, and deduce mathematical formulas of possible scenarios in the Space of Options.”

I was on the stage, in the center of the circle. The audience froze in anticipation. The Guardian took a seat next to the chroniclers. The Guardian of Time announced to those present the coordinates of my incarnation, and the holographic images within the circle instantly changed, dividing it into 12 different-sized sectors – Spheres, or Houses. The four axes formed a cross so that I found myself in the central point of it. The planetary spirits took their places similarly unevenly and provide me with rays of energy, forming aspects still unknown to me among themselves. I no longer heard the verdicts of the chroniclers – the Music of the Spheres pierced me through pulsating in me with waves of a thousand shades of feelings, attracting many multi-colored atoms to their place strictly defined. Enlarging, I acquired contours, arms and legs appeared, I felt my own boundaries, and the planetary spirits in turn came up to me and circled with me in the whirlwind of the Dance of Destiny, spinning my body at a frantic speed, but in the rhythm of the Music, which was full of amazing depth and power.

The music faded. Everything was over. Ugh! I stood still on the stage, not yet realizing what had happened, but noticing a silver dress on my astral body – I’d incarnate as a woman. The Guardian took my hand and led me out. I felt the sadness in his thoughts and heard the sighs of the chroniclers.

“What does all that mean?” I asked as he opened the door to the Stairs. “Why are they sighing?”

The Guardian had no time to answer – a dark entity, from the witnesses of my dance in the Hall, chuckled smugly, looking into the Guardian’s eyes, and exclaimed,

“One more ours!”

“Don’t say hop until you’ve jumped over!” the Guardian answered, and we walked out the door into the Universe to the Stairs.

“Angel, why did the devil say that?”

“Never mind, everything is in our thoughts. So, the Staircase has 40 steps, but every soul descends to Earth along a personal corridor. Each step is a detail of your heavenly passport. Here it is, take it!” the Guardian handed me a little book with incomprehensible numbers, degrees, signs and formulas. “Everything becomes clear step by step as you descend!”

“Is there something bad? I want to fulfill my destiny and return to you here!” I exclaimed.

“You are a soul of Light, but not everyone on Earth remembers Heaven, and life sometimes puts one in a bind, and when there is a predisposition…”

“To what?” I kept on wondering from the frightening suspense, but the Guardian didn’t answer me.

---

***

At the House with the inscription “No. 1” on the front door, a girl in a white dress and a man in a purple robe were already waiting for us. They both had danced with me in the Hall.

“I’m Selene,” the girl smiled, “and he is Sirius. At the moment of your incarnation, we are right at the point of your first breath, above the door to House No. 1. Each House represents a Sphere of Life. You’ll pass through them all and get to know the planetary spirits with whom you’ve danced in the Hall to learn about your mission and destiny. The incarnated tend to forget everything, but the Astral Tablets remember everything about everyone and your Guardian will help or prompt you.”

“I’ll try to remember!”

“You have to,” Sirius clarified meaningfully, the Guardian sighed, and Selene stroked my head and said,

“In one of the scenarios, you’ll fail the test of life by violating the Heavenly law.”

“Am I going to kill someone?” I exclaimed in horror.

“You’ll return ahead of schedule,” the Guardian replied.

“No, this is impossible!” I exhaled in relief and laughed.

“It happens sometimes even to very bright and kind souls,” Selene stated. “Earth is full of temptations, not all thoughts are from the Guardian, and Heaven sometimes seems too distant and unfair. Before descending the Stairs, every soul has the right to move once to any fragment of any possible scenario of one’s future life, since all of them have already been fixed in the Space of Options. Think, Rukh, what’s there to see, what is worth getting known, or what important things can be done there now. After the incarnation, any information about such travel is unlikely to penetrate to the level of Consciousness, but in critical points you can remember a lot by connecting to the Astral Tablets through the Subconscious in order to correct the scenario.”

“Well… Let’s suppose there is a worst-case scenario, in an unknown segment of which something happens as a cause that leads me to an erroneous action-effect. Neither the cause itself, nor the moment of its occurrence can be guessed by me. So, I need to talk to myself a minute before the action-effect to find out the cause, in order to remember it on Earth beforehand and either prevent its occurrence or react to it differently in order to avoid the effect. Right?”

The Guardian sighed, Selene glanced at Sirius, and he said,

“We have no right to prompt you now, and if you formulate it wrong.”

“I don’t see any other options!”

---

***

Sometime in the Future

A rainy night. Me in the Future was sitting on the windowsill by the open window in a black hoodie with a rosary in hand. Noticing Me the Rukh, she turned around, stood up at full height on the windowsill and breathed a sigh of relief,

“Oh, finally! I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”

“But why?!” I asked.

“Why what?” she asked me calmly.

“Why don’t you want to live?”

“Everything about everyone is known there, especially to the Angel of my death!”

“I’m not an angel! I just need to understand what has happened!”

“In this case, you’ve got the wrong address, and we have nothing to talk about,” she said with annoyance and turned to face the rain.

“I beg you, by all the Saints, tell me why!”

She turned around, holding on to the window handle with her right hand, and with her left, still fingering the rosary.

“I don’t remember anything. It hurts remembering. The pain would have killed me, one of us had to die – either me or the pain. I prayed asking to erase my memory so as not to exit life, but it was only an illusion of choice! God heard me and erased my memory. Since then, I wake up in the morning remembering nothing, not even the day before. Such life is worse than any death. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. You can’t escape your destiny! I tried to avoid what I ended up with. However, I’m not afraid, since I died at the same time as my memory.”

The Guardian hovered in the air in front of the window, and the same devil who had whispered to me in front of the door, “One more ours!”, appeared next to him. The drenched devil was rubbing his disgusting hooves and impatiently beating his tail on the slippery ledge.

Me in the Future noticed my gaze, turned to face the rain and, seeing the Guardian, cried out,

“It’s you!”

She was about to take a step towards the Guardian, whom she had clearly mistaken for an angel of death, as I rushed towards her, trying to grab her by the black hoodie in order to… but – what a horror! – it seemed to me, it happened precisely because of me, because of that movement of mine, the wave of energy, – she suddenly slipped on the wet windowsill and… with the window handle, that couldn’t withstand the load, in one hand, and with the rosary in the other, instantly collapsed into the darkness!

“No!” I screamed.

The happy devil disappeared, the Guardian sighed heavily and hugged me.

“Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you save her? She remembered nothing! She had a rosary; she prayed, you see! And you didn’t listen to her! You knew that I wouldn’t be able to find out the cause and change anything, since you had taken her memory away!”

“Calm down, Rukh! Everything will be fine. We have to go.”

“Wait. Perhaps there is some hint here.”

I looked around. It was the kitchen. There was a table by the window with a candlestick in wax, some icons on the left wall, a stove and a sink on the right. The scanned fridge turned out to be almost empty – half a lemon and cottage cheese.

I left the kitchen for the hallway and went further into the room: again the icons on the walls, a fireplace, a rocking chair, a bed and a wardrobe. There was a prayer book on the bedside table. The contents of the wardrobe, in terms of the number of things inside, resembled the fridge.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “Was she a nun?”

The Guardian shook his head negatively. I returned to the corridor. As everywhere, there were icons on the walls. Suddenly, I noticed another door with a rusty lock and found a hidden room behind it, where – wow! – there were bags with miscellaneous stuff, covered with cobwebs and dust. Apparently, Me in the Future had locked our Past there.

“We have to go, Rukh!” the Guardian called out to me.

“Give me a second!” I said, for some reason rushing to the bookcase in the far corner, and began to scan the titles at lightning speed until my gaze settled on “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I need this book. I want to take it with me!”

“Leave it. All books are stored in the Library of the Universe. You can read it going down the Stairs. Are you satisfied with such option?”

“At least something,” I muttered in response, and in a moment we were back at the mysterious House No. 1.

40 Before/1 After. House No. I. (ASC)

Starry Garden

Somewhere in the Universe

I was about to open the door to House No. 1, trying to disengage myself from what I had seen in my potential Future, when Selene stopped me.

“Don’t rush, Rukh! Let’s talk all the four of us in the starry garden,” she said with a smile and led me to the heavenly swing. “What do you think awaits you on Earth?”

“When the Guardian woke me up, I thought about light and joyful things. I’ve been told that earthly parents help the soul to get accustomed to the new space, then the children grow up, meet earthly love, create families in warm and cozy houses, take care of each other and work, doing something useful for the world. However, I don’t know what to think now. I still have no idea who I’m going to be there and what I have to go through.”

“Everyone is scared before the incarnation,” Selene reassured me. “Heavenly passport is not a sentence, it’s a labyrinth with corridors of predetermined options. It’s forbidden to go outside the labyrinth, but there is almost always the right to choose inside.”

Selene and I were sitting on the swing, while Sirius and the Guardian slowly rocked it.

“You are at the starting point of your destiny,” Sirius said, “at the moment of your first breath on Earth. This point is called the Ascendant, it falls into one of the 360 degrees of the Heavenly Circle, the Clock of Life, and in fact determines your entire life on Earth.”

“And what is that degree?” I asked, and the Canis Major Constellation flickered on the screen of the Universe.

“The magical degree of mystery and prophetic gift,” said Selene, “one of the most mystical, where the Sun connects with Sirius. Sirius, the Alpha of the Canis Major Constellation, the Heavenly Wolf, is a symbol of single people who don’t care about the opinions of others, they are drawn to exploring the Invisible World, which can lead to tragic results due to a weakened sense of self-preservation.”

“By the way, degrees have colors,” Sirius said. “Mine is purple, the sign of the initiates, it means a direct connection with Heaven and high spirituality. This degree is usually accentuated in ascetics and spiritual teachers, but sometimes in great scientists, writers, translators, interior designers – in extraordinary and mysterious personalities, more often geniuses, whose lives are full of mysterious events and ‘accidental’ coincidences.”

“You will anticipate future events,” the Guardian added.

“Sirius is a great magician,” Selene confirmed. “He is 250 million years old. The Royal star of the brightest light! The luminosity of Sirius exceeds the Solar 25 times. The star of the initiates who receive spiritual support from the Subtle World. Sirius gives you the keys to the Secret Knowledge, provides authority, fame and all sorts of honors. Sirius is accentuated in the passports of many famous people.”

“Who are all these people?” I asked, curiously examining the holographic portraits on the screen of the Universe.

“Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner in physics. He penetrated the Subtle World, explored Space and Time, predicted quantum teleportation and gravitational waves, dealt with the problems of cosmology and studied the effects of invisible fields,” said the Guardian.

“Helena Blavatskaya,” added Sirius, “she devoted her life to the Subtle World exploration, wrote many books about the Secret Knowledge, founded the Theosophical Society.”

“Nobel Prize winner in literature, poet, writer and artist Hermann Hesse,” Selene smiled. “He was interested in psychoanalysis, explored the soul and its states, studied philosophy and compared religions.”

“Sirius can be called the flame of immortality,” said the Guardian. “The souls incarnating under the patronage of Sirius leave a significant trace on Earth. Which one? It depends on the conjunctions and aspects of Sirius, and other passport data. In ancient Egypt, Sirius children were assigned the role of priests.”

“Remember, though,” Sirius warned, “I provide a person with tremendous energy that is difficult to control, even a small action can set off a fire. However, if my energy is not used or is used for evil, the person will be burned or bitten by it. I’m in charge of wolves and dogs as well.”

“Either one serves humanity,” Selene concluded, “consciously sacrificing one Self, for which one will receive fame and recognition, or one is recalled from Earth. My role is not so great, but the support of the Higher Forces is guaranteed to you throughout your entire incarnation!”

“Selene, the planet of Light, multiplies my strength,” the Guardian added.

“That’s right,” Sirius smiled, “Selene and I will try to protect you, Rukh, from the Black Magic. If you become a person emanating Heavenly Light, people will come to you for help. Selene inclines towards altruism, but energy donors attract manipulative vampires, and the Light beings are hated by the Forces of Darkness. The evil spirits will narrow around you in a tight ring, unlikely to leave you alone until you return to Heaven. Joan of Arc, accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake during the Inquisition, had a similar position of Selene. You won’t be burned, but you’ll have to suffer. Possessing extra sensitive abilities and the gift of healing, you can become a white magician.”

“Saint Seraphim of Sarov had a similar Selene,” the Guardian added. “You’ll love nature, it will be reciprocally, animals will obey you. It’s very beautiful on Earth, Rukh! There are mountains, trees, flowers there, the butterflies flutter, the bees work… Well, it’s time for us to go to the Library, to read the book from your Future!”

Library of the Universe

“Wow!” I exclaimed.

“The greatest book depository. Even drafts of ever existing in projection are collected here. And indeed, as one writer said, manuscripts don’t burn!”

“How to orient oneself here and get to the right book?”

“Formulate mentally what you need to find.”

We took chairs in the Reading Hall. As soon as I remembered the title, the book appeared right in front of me. I looked at the cover and read the author’s first and last name.

“Who is this Alice? Do you know her, Angel?”

“Certainly! It’s you.”

“What a surprise! I thought I would just communicate with ghosts. Perhaps the book indicates the cause for the erased memory. Oh no! No!” I exclaimed after reading the annotation. “These are stories written in childhood! The cause can’t be there!”

“All people come from childhood. There is nothing accidental, especially for the soul with Sirius and Selene on the Ascendant!”

The book opened at the story “The Letter”, and I read a mysterious message from the correspondence of third parties living at the end of the 19th century and clearly associated with the Theosophical Society of Madame Blavatskaya. It ended as follows,

“…“Certainly, in my life, there have been also other inexplicable cases related to those who passed into the Other World, but I should confess to you that most of all I have always been concerned about the relationship of alive people, because it is what turns some of us into ghosts…

April 13, 1883”

P.S. The letter was found by the author of the book in the Astral Tablets on April 13, 1994. Underscores remained as in original.”

“What does that mean, Angel? She, that is me, as a child, got into the Astral Tablets, found that letter 111 years after it had been written by a third person to a fourth person, and for some reason published it!”

“Make a request to the Astral Tablets for the existence of the original.”

I concentrated, sent a mental request, and a transparent old paper with intricate female handwriting appeared in front of my eyes.

“Check the date,” the Guardian suggested. “Find the differences between the original and the copy. And note that a few words conveyed not in tracing paper but true in meaning, is not a bad result!”

Return to Athos

Greece

“Finally! I’m here! God, what a joy it is to come back here again and again!”

I was waiting for my luggage at Thessaloniki airport with the anticipation of a cup of coffee on the balcony overlooking the sea in my cozy hole in Ouranoupoli. In August, I used to rent an apartment on the top floor in Nicolette’s house, a 5–7 minutes walk to the ferry to Mount Athos.

Athos in Greece was not only a state within the state, an Orthodox monastic republic on the Holy Mountain, where women were not allowed. Athos was a peninsula that almost entirely had belonged to Orthodox Athos before the war with Turkey. Later, in order to settle the Greek refugees, part of the monastic territory was given to secular Greece with a shift in borders to Ouranoupoli, the city of Heaven (or Uranus, the planet in charge of Heaven), then a small village accessible for everyone. There was an early morning ferry to Dafni (the port of Mount Athos) there, and at 10 a tour ship to the Holy Mountain so that tourists could admire the monasteries from afar and venerate the shrines brought to them in boats by Athos monks. At the foot of the Mountain the spirit was breathtaking! — a huge pillar of Light went up to the Sky.

Oh, if I had been a man, I would have climbed the Mountain, lived in monasteries and … would I have returned? Happiness was to die in the Holy Land!

However, even in Ouranoupoli, you could feel the Gates open, and you were instantly heard in Heaven, every word and thought.

I loved Ouranoupoli. I loved everything there: the people, the sea, the food, the atmosphere of peace of mind and the Spirit of the Holy Mountain. Athos was my love at first sight, and my heart would forever remain there.

The luggage began to crawl onto the belt. Shifting my gaze from one suitcase to another, I noticed an Old Monk. I had met him before, but where and when? However, monks were everywhere on Athos, especially in August, the peak of pilgrimage, when many Orthodox holidays were celebrated, including the day of St. Panteleimon, after whom the Russian monastery on Athos was named, and the Assumption of the Virgin. I liked listening to stories about Athos, when monks, stopping for the night in Ouranoupoli, had dinner in cafes and shared their impressions.

I walked out of the airport building. Outside, as usual, I was met by Kostas, a friend of my friend Dimitra. He grabbed my things, and we were already rushing along the serpentine roads towards home. In an hour or an hour and a half, I would throw myself into Nicolette’s arms, grab the keys of my hole, drink a cup of coffee and run to the sea – the most beautiful, azure, paradise sea with a view of the fabulous island of Ammouliani, the Holy Mountain and the mysterious Tower; sea with fish and a white sandy beach, with few people and a shade from the olive trees. By lunchtime, I used to return home and work on my manuscripts until 18:00. That time I had with me some miraculously surviving stories from the book “Do You Believe in Ghosts?”

At 18:00 the heat usually began to die down, and I went for a promenade to watch the sunset on the border with Mount Athos at the dilapidated Zygou monastery, where one could swim in a bay hidden from prying eyes, and then to return to the Tower, the symbol of Ouranoupoli (a former hotel for monks, and later – museum), drink coffee with friends, exchanging stories, including those about Saints and icons. I loved Athos icons, I liked to look at them for a long time – to feel them, there were many alive and unique ones there! At midnight, I used to return home.

Ouranoupoli, Athos, Greece

“Welcome back!” exclaimed Nicolette. “Alice’s flat is waiting for its mistress! Coffee?”

I opened the door to the balcony and smiled, “Hello, City of Heaven! Hello, the Sun and the Sea! Hello, Athos and the Holy Mountain!”

Suddenly the phone rang, but the number wasn’t identified.

“Hello, Alice,” a familiar male voice said. “Welcome back!”

“Ray?!” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

“On Athos… Listen…”

“Athos?” he seemed surprised.

“I’m always on Athos in August… Ray, listen…”

“In August?!” he was even more surprised.

“Yes, listen to me! How can you call me? You are a ghost!”

“A ghost, so what? You have communicated with ghosts, haven’t you?”

“As with you now, not yet!”

“So it’s time to start it that way as well!”

“What do you want to tell me?” I asked, almost relaxed and resigned to the opportunity to communicate on the phone with ghosts calling live to Athos from unidentified numbers.

“Well, nothing special… Okay, I get it. See you.”

“Where? Here, on Athos?” I got surprised.

“Who will let me, a magician, go to Athos? In a dream!” Ray laughed, and the connection was cut off.

***

There were only two crowded streets in Ouranoupoli – the sea one, with cafes and shops, and the central or main one, two houses from the sea one, mostly with icon shops. The streets met at the Tower.

Dimitra’s icon shop was located on the main street directly opposite the Tower, and St. Marina, wielding an ax at the devil, the icon, purchased from Dimitra, was my first Athos icon. Dimitra and her family were Greek. We communicated in English.

“Hello, Alice! I hope Kostas rushed you here at lightning speed! How is the sea?”

“I’m in Paradise, thank you!” I smiled and glanced at the wall with hand-painted icons.

“You have Marina already, and the Holy Family, too,” Dimitra remembered all the icons that I had already got. “By the way, how is Marina doing? Has she already chopped up the devil with the axe?”

“Still in process,” I sighed. “I need the icon of St. Peter.”

“I’ve got Peter and Paul!”

“I have Peter and Paul. By the way, I go to the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the Metochion of the Optina Pustyn Monastery. Do you know what they symbolize?”

“I’m not so pious, that’s why I’m asking you about icons, taking advantage of the fact that you like coffee,” Dimitra smiled.

“Peter and Paul are a symbol of the duality of the world, black and white, merged into one, left and right paths. Peter was considered the main Apostle in Catholicism, while Paul – in Orthodoxy. The Athos image presents them embracing in the shape of a heart.”

“White and Black Magic?”

“You can say that also, but I need Peter with the keys,” I clarified, continuing to inspect the hand-painted icons, but many of them I had already seen there a year before.

“With the keys to Paradise?” Dimitra asked.

“He has two keys,” I laughed, “it’s not a fact that both are to Paradise!”

“Here on Athos, you are already in Paradise!” said Dimitra, taking out the notebook, in which she kept a record of all the icons ordered on Athos, their receipt and sale. “No, I’ve never ordered Peter with keys. I’ll call the twin monks at St. Anna’s hermitage tomorrow, perhaps they’ll have time to paint the icon before you leave.”

---

I entered the icon shop of Janis’ family. His parents spoke Greek, but Janis studied Russian. He always congratulated me on Orthodox holidays by sending a photo of a hand-painted holiday icon from their shop. Janis had got a daughter recently.

“Alice! Welcome, dear! How are you? How is your cat?”

The cat wasn’t mine, but periodically he visited me and, walking around the flat, including open shelves with Athos icons, he put his forehead to the icons, just like a person. I photographed the cat to show to the Athos’ locals.

Janis’ father greeted me in Greek and immediately asked the girls who worked in their shop to make coffee. Janis showed me the new icons and shared the latest news, while I slowly walked around the space greeting the Saints, and they greeted me in return. Janis used to say that I felt alive icons. There were also watching ones, the Saints on them looked directly at you, following your movement in space.

“You have already Nicholas, and Alexandra too,” Janis remembered all the icons that I had already got. “What don’t you have?”

“The Stairs,” I admitted.

“Rare icon! Tomorrow I’ll call the cell of St. Nicholas to find out if they have a painted one, if not, I’ll order it to get the icon before your departure! You just need to choose an image. I’ll show you how we paint it, and the size. That icon helps souls to go through the Postmortem Ordeals. I hope nobody of yours died,” Janis opened an Internet page and showed me the options.

Having chosen the image of the Stairs, I looked around to find the desired size, and my gaze stopped on the bottom shelf in the corner rack, from where the Virgin Mary, clearly alive, was staring at me, and I involuntarily shuddered,

“That size.”

We used to drink coffee outside, at the entrance to Janis’ shop. It was customary there, shopkeepers drank coffee, chatting with passers-by, then crossed the street to have coffee with those opposite, exchanging news or silently examining tourists’ packages – the ones flashing more often indicated the most prosperous shop in Ouranoupoli. Janis usually told me about Athos, since he visited the cells, talked with the monks and took tourists to the Mountain.

“Have you ever met 12 hermits?” I asked.

“To meet them, you have to be a Saint,” Janis sighed and dived into the shop to the customers who had just entered it.

“I’m so glad you’re back with us!” exclaimed Leah, a Georgian of my age, who had lived there for almost ten years, an employee of Janis. “Thank God you are alive and well! You are very bright, even the mistress said, there is another kindness in Alice, a real one, from Heaven.”

“Thanks, Leah! Do you know the name of that icon, the Virgin Mary?” I showed it to Leah through the window.

“I don’t even remember where we got it from. I’ll tell you tomorrow!”

---

Janis was Dimitra’s nephew. Kiriyaki, or simply Kiri, was Dimitra’s niece. In that village, almost all were relatives, although not everyone was friendly with the others. Kiri inherited the icon shop of her father, who had retrained as an ice cream vendor two years before. The shop, like Dimitra’s, was small, but Kiri bought mostly big and expensive icons. I liked one of the icon painters who painted for her for reasonable money.

“Hello, Alice! I’m pregnant again, as you see!” she smiled.

“And a boy again?!”

“Yes,” she laughed and after some welcoming questions proceeded to review her new icons.

“Alice, it’s great to see you!” having entered the shop, Kiri’s father said, hugging and kissing me on cheeks three times. “For how long? You know, you’ll never leave! You’ll stay on Athos forever!”

“Do you happen to have St. Barbara with the cup?” I asked Kiri, pondering her father’s words.

“Not with the cup, another one. What do you need it for? It protects against sudden death, doesn’t it? Thus, you don’t want to die without communion, right?”

Kiri promised me to find out about St. Barbara, and I headed for Socrates.

Socrates was a friend of Dimitra, native Greek, but we communicated in Italian, although he spoke English as well. No one understood us in Italian, and it was useful to practice. Socrates was fond of rare icons and told me about them – emotionally! — similar to the Italian temperament.

“Oh Alice! Welcome back! Well, I’ll show you something!” he shouted from afar, and then pulled out his phone and found a photo, “They wrote an article about me in ‘National Geographic!’ Look! Do you see it? Here’s my name, the name and address of my icon shop! And those are my icons, from this wall! Imagine, some journalists came here and didn’t even say who they were and where they came from! You know, I always tell the truth about icons, and I told them everything! And they wrote it!”

“Congratulations!” I smiled and, having turned my gaze to the wall with icons, froze in my tracks.

“Coffee?” Socrates offered, not noticing my stupor.

“You knew it! I need this icon, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’ve even supposed that it doesn’t exist!”

“Which one?”

“The Four Evangelists!”

“Ha! I always have something that supposedly doesn’t exist! You are here like a local, you know everything about everyone, who is who, who sells this and that at what price, you understand the painting techniques. Why do you need ‘the Four Evangelists’?”

“To rewrite the Future.”

---

Somewhere in the Mist

We took the lift to the top floor of a huge shopping center.

“Close your eyes and give me your hand!” Michael said mysteriously and led me somewhere, and then whispered, “Open!”

“Wow!” I exclaimed, since right in front of us, as if hovering in the air over the abyss, under the dome of the shopping center, there was an Island of Violets, to which a narrow bridge led.

“Don’t worry, the bridge is real, it won’t collapse! Here is an amazing cafe, where we are the only ones to have breakfast today!”

We landed on a sofa, immersed in violet thickets, the flowers surrounded us from all sides – real, large, beautiful and … sad. The waitress left us, taking our order, and Michael took out and handed me a gift box.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“Thank you! Angels are always needed, one can never have too many of them,” I smiled when I saw a lovely silver Guardian Angel, and then, once again glancing at the flowers, I remembered, “Violets in Greece are a symbol of mourning! Imagine, the young Persephone, picking violets, was kidnapped by the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead. Since then, the Greeks have been covering prematurely dead girls with violets.”

“Leave Greece apart! Better tell me why haven’t you emigrated to Italy yet? We talked with you a hundred times, there is nothing for you to do here! You know Italian. They take you for a local in Italy. You are young, smart, beautiful. So? Today we’ll register you on international dating websites. Remember the photo shoot in the fall! Lots of amazing photos! We’ll choose the best ones, and in a month, you’ll invite me to your wedding! You’ll see! What’s the point of wasting time? You are a miracle in feathers! Speaking of feathers, what are you writing now?”

“Nothing… I know what I have to. I saw it there.”

“About Another Reality?”

“Yes, perhaps the time for that book hasn’t come yet.”

“What did you see?”

I wondered how to explain to an earthly man what they had shown me in Heaven, and shifted my gaze to the flowers, but I noticed Ray on the bridge to the Violet Island.

“So what did they show you, Alice?” Michael asked, sitting with his back to Ray approaching us.

“Aggregation of atoms,” I breathed out to Michael.

“I delved into scientific books. So many discoveries in the fields of quantum have been made, and all that stuff about Another Reality, it just takes my breath away! Do you want me to bring them for you to read?”

“Alice, do you want a trick?” Ray asked as he sat down nearby.

“Okay, bring them,” I replied to Michael.

“Don’t be afraid,” Ray held out his hand to me. “Close your eyes.”

I looked at Ray with a question in my eyes, but I couldn’t disobey. We took a couple of steps away from the table, while Michael, as if nothing had happened, continued,

“Next time I’ll bring you three books at once. So, what are we going to do today?”

“Open your eyes, Alice,” Ray whispered, and I obeyed.

Ray and I were standing on the bridge. I turned my gaze to… Oh no! There, at the table, on the Violet Island! There was still me there!

39 Before/2 After. House No. I

Dark Tower

Somewhere in the Universe

“Scared, Rukh?” the Guardian asked at the door of House No. 1.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s not the place to get really scared.”

I obediently opened the door, stepped inside and expected to see anything, but … I ended up on a fragile suspension bridge, swaying from a gale force wind over a raging sea! The wind longed to break the bridge and throw it into the abyss. The bridge led to an island surrounded by a high stone wall, behind which there was a Dark Tower, going straight into the sky.

“Where are we? What’s happening?” I shouted to the Guardian, and huge waves crashed down, clearly trying to drown us.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” the Guardian led me to the iron gates of the fortress, and they at once opened obediently, and behind them…

…it was so quiet, as if the raging sea didn’t exist! A stone-paved path led up to the Tower, where a few ghosts flashed in the windows. Butterflies fluttered over beautiful flower beds on either side of the path.

“How strange everything is here! Even the flowers,” I involuntarily burst out, “they are beautiful and sad. Why?”

“These are violets,” the Guardian sighed, and I noticed an old monk approaching us.

“Hello, Rukh,” said the monk, piercing me with a deep gaze. “Health and strength to your Angel. The sea is almost always restless here. A storm is about to break out. Come on, let’s warm ourselves by the fireplace.”

We entered the Dark Tower. A candle appeared in the monk’s hand. He lit it with the power of his mind, and we climbed a narrow spiral staircase up to the top floor to a tiny door decorated with a skull and the inscription “Memento Mori”.

The first thing that caught my eye in the cell room was the absence of a roof, the starry sky spread over us with the Moon floating across it. A bare stone floor. A small window without glass, but with bars. A wooden table by the window, with old books, a pen and an inkwell. A rocking chair by the fireplace with a cracked mirror above it. The walls were adorned with candlesticks and icons with Saints, each of whom smiled in response to my mental greeting.

“My name is Saturn. We are inside your Self, Rukh,” whispered the old monk, sitting down into an armchair by the fireplace blazed instantly.

“House No. 1 is self-consciousness,” the Guardian confirmed, “what kind of person you are inside, not outside, your ‘ego’.”

“Egoism and pride don’t threaten you,” Saturn chuckled. “House No. 1 turned out to be not a luxurious palace, not even a castle, but the Dark Tower on an island that occupies only 13 degrees out of 360 in the Circle, designed for 12 Spheres of Life. You’ll be lucky with the number ‘13’, since your first breath falls on the 13th degree of Cancer, and ‘your Self’ Sphere has 13 degrees.”

“The door opens at the moment of the first breath,” the Guardian clarified, “House No. 1 is also called the House of Life, and its owner is the Master of Destiny, in your case it’s the Moon. Since the Moon is too far from here, Selene is a fictitious planet, Sirius is a star, so Saturn plays the dominant of Destiny role, having the maximum impact on your Consciousness.”

“Angel, don’t rush! Jumping up the Stairs is a thankless task, you may hurt yourself,” Saturn stopped the Guardian and materialized two chairs for us. “The island is located in the sea, in the Sign of Water, Cancer. You are an emotional and sensitive girl, subtly feeling the non-manifested and hidden, our Subtle World, or Another Reality for people. They say that such as you live without skin and have amazing intuition. We are talking about the Astral or Starry body – a super-sensitive soul, which is always in search for protection and care, a stone wall. One day you will build a high stone wall, shutting yourself off from people because of the acute mental pain they have caused, and your Dark Tower that goes into Heavens in order to communicate with our World, occasionally inviting the chosen ones, with whom you don’t need to be afraid of being wounded or killed.”

“Cancer means a delicate body and an impenetrable shell, right?”

“Yes, exactly. Children are comfortable with you. They feel the world as you do. But with adults… At the slightest threat of discomfort, you’ll withdraw hiding into yourself. Caution, shyness, fear of expressing emotions for fear appearing ridiculous, molded from a different dough. Amazing imagination, but innate self-doubt and fear of change. The task is to reveal the talents generously provided by Heaven, and, stepping on the throat of fears, to share with people the results of the soul’s creativity.”

“And my mother? Won’t she protect me?” I asked.

“Of course,” Saturn sighed, “for people like you, the support, approval, love and care of loved ones are important. There is a strong attachment to the well of the Past and mother. The well is hidden in the basement of the Tower. Diving into it, you’ll become a deep personality.”

“Will I have a big family?”

“The family is not to be mentioned here,” Saturn sighed again. “Anyway, you’ll strive to build a cozy nest in a quiet harbor in order to feel safe. When you acquire a shell, people will no longer understand who you are – the stony expression on your face will become your mask. Unlike most earthly women, you are unsociable and laconic, though you know to listen and hear, you have the ability to speak without words. Look for those with whom you can communicate as customary here. Your Selene tends to help people. You are inclined to self-sacrifice. A devoted, honest and faithful, but easily inspired soul, you are open to magical influences, primarily by husbands and / or business partners. You’ll be deceived and betrayed, however, it’s better to be betrayed by someone than to betray someone.”

“Will I live by the sea?”

“You’ll love and fear it at the same time, painting it from childhood, even before you have seen it with earthly eyes. What did you feel walking across the bridge?”

“Fear,” I agreed with Saturn.

Suddenly, thunder rumbled outside the window and rain poured down instantly.

“Uranus is naughty,” Saturn sighed. “Well, I’ve said enough about your Cancer essence, the Moon will tell you the rest.”

Ghosts began to appear from the cracked mirror, surrounding me and pulling me into …

Library of the Universe

“I don’t understand,” I confessed to the Guardian, as I took a seat in the Reading Hall, “why are there, in my Consciousness, ghosts appearing and the monk living, and the sign ‘Memento mori’ on the door to the cell? Saturn said nothing about himself, the Moon sailed over the Tower in the distance, and the sea wanted to drown me.”

“Not all at once, Rukh! The Stairs must be walked, not jumped. Listen attentively and absorb the information. It’ll be easier to remember on Earth.”

The book flatted open at page with “The Girl and the Sea” miniature.

“She used to sit for a long time by the Sea at sunset, the Girl in a pink dress. Lost in thoughts about something, she was gazing into the Sky. There was a Mysterious Land in the clouds, where winged people lived. Lilac castles beckoned her to them, in their quaint gardens fabulous flowers were fragrant and magical birds were singing. The wind carried unusual aromas and echoes of enchanting melodies to the Girl. And she also saw familiar faces there, they smiled and called the Girl to their Heavenly Country, to the City of the Sun. She dreamed of getting to them, but didn’t know how to do it, because she had no wings. The Sun was setting into the Sea. Warm waves caressed her legs, singing a quiet kind song that she had heard from her mother when she was still a baby. The Girl looked around, but there was no one on the shore, and she felt completely lonely. The gloomy Rocks didn’t understand her, because they couldn’t feel anything, however, that was the reason they would never die. The Rocks, as usual, were only watching silently the picture at sunset: the Girl and the Sea. The Sun was approaching the horizon. The waves were whispering louder and louder. The Magic Country floated away, losing its outlines. The Girl was standing by the Sea, and her tears fell onto the waves, and the Sea became salty… The seagulls that flew to the seashore in the evening didn’t find anyone there. The Sun sank behind the horizon, and the Night came. Somewhere far away in the Sky, the seagulls noticed the outlines of an unknown City. They wondered, what kind of City it was, being situated not on Earth, but in the Sky. They had never seen such cities before! And the two most curious seagulls decided to make a flight to the mysterious City, but they had not enough strength to reach it. And the Girl disappeared. The Rocks no longer saw her there, on the seashore, at sunset. Only the book left by the Girl on the coastal stone reminded them of her existence.”

On the border

Ouranoupoli

I woke up to the alarm at 9:50. I had a strange dream, but Ray… what did he try to say? The Island of Violets actually existed. Michael, an excellent poet and deputy minister, had invited me once to that cafe to celebrate the release of his book, which included also some poems dedicated to me. Michael dreamed of celebrating my wedding in Italy.

I went down for breakfast. Nicolette’s mom used to cook herself. Her breakfasts were much tastier than in hotels. My room was more spacious, and what a gorgeous balcony I had! In the afternoon, the Sun left it, allowing me to dine enjoying the view of the islands in the azure sea; at night, the Moon used to float by, and a mysterious multi-beam star winked me. The house was built on a rock overlooking the sea, in a word, I lived on the top floor of the mysterious Tower in order to calmly talk with Heaven without fear of tsunami. Funny! I was lucky on “13”, that was the number of my apartment on Athos, my dacha and garage, my ex-husband’s flat in Moscow, the last digits of my phone number and so on.

Rising from breakfast, I ran into the maid and asked her not to clean my place every day, just to take out the garbage, since I liked to feel as at home.

The sea – sea – sea … After swimming, I used to plop down in the white sand by the distant rocks, and then to return home, buying on the way some ice cream and fruit in Acropolis Tavern’s minimarket, where I occasionally had dinner.

After reading “The Girl and the Sea”, which hadn’t much to be corrected, I fell into childhood memories, but at exactly 18:00 – I loved everything systemic, not digesting chaos and since it was too hot during the day – I went for a walk to the Athos border, taking with me the Akathist to the “Seeking for the Perished” icon of the Virgin Mary. On the way, I visited the Church of Saints Constantine and Helena, where there were the “Gatekeeper” (Portaitissa), “Quick to Hear” (Gorgoepikoos) and an old icon of St. Petka Paraskeva, beloved by the Greeks and me. The icon of Petka, I had bought on St. Stephen island in Montenegro, where I had lived in a castle on vacation a long time before, was the first hand-painted icon in my house. In Ouranoupoli, you could enter the church in any clothes and shoes, and Greek women didn’t cover their heads with scarves for the memory of the war with Turkey – a protest against Muslim customs. Inside the church, there was air conditioning and chairs for parishioners to sit, except for special moments of liturgy.

The road to the border with Athos started from the Tower and went to the left along the sea, perpendicular to the main street. In about 30 minutes you could see the Zygou monastery, the monument “Protected by UNESCO”, the golden coat of arms of Mount Athos, barbed wire and a small customs house, although in 99% of cases, if the sea wasn’t stormy, they got to Athos by ferry, not by land. I liked that rural road – past the vineyards and olive groves, the lands of local residents, and the tiny luxury hotel “Sketes”, where I wouldn’t have stayed, because the sea after the Tower was different, it changed dramatically, turning from kind and homely to spontaneous and harsh, as if the real border had been located at the Tower.

I reached the border and habitually stopped at the ruined Zygou, first mentioned in 941. Usually access to the excavation area was closed, but Sophia, Dimitra’s daughter, had taken me there and shown all sorts of interesting and curious things. I turned right and walked to the sea along the barbed wire, greeted the Holy Mountain and read the Akathist. Guards by the wire – wasps – were flying to scan intentions, but I wasn’t going to cross the border, and they left me alone.

Sophia had shown me a mysterious cove of stunning beauty to the right of the border. There was a small passage between the rocks, and during the evening tide you could get inside and out only by swimming, so it was no sense to take any value with you – everything had to be left on the rock at the entrance. I climbed one of the rocks to meet the sunset. The Sun was like a burning candle. Having taken a few photos, I found ghosts distinctly manifested on them, so I sent the photos to my friend, Svetlana, and, raising my head, I saw … I could swear, it was the same Monk from the airport! He walked slowly along the shore, sat down at the rock nearby and met the sunset too. When the Sun disappeared, I wandered back. The Monk followed me and turned towards the customs house. I exhaled in relief. There was something about him that distinguished him from other monks, but what?

Dimitra was chatting with her husband and brother at their icon shop opposite the Tower. She greeted me with a smile, offered coffee and asked about my day.

“I went to the border. How is Peter with the keys doing?”

“I’ve phoned the twin monks. They say it’s August and they are full of festive events. I can send you Peter by post in about nine months,” Dimitra offered, handing me coffee. “Today, a couple from Serbia has bought two printed icons, and a man from London, you won’t believe it, has taken away your favorite ‘The 4th Generation’! As he’s entered the shop, got frozen and said, ‘I want it’.”

London… I felt something sank inside, and at the same time I saw the Monk, the very same one! He went to the square in front of the Tower, crossed it and…

“Sorry, I have a client!” Dimitra whispered and ducked into her shop, and I took a few steps towards the Tower, but Dimitra returned, “False alarm!”

“The Tower, you say it’s closed…”

“Yes, already for several years. They say the state has no money to maintain the museum. And there’s a problem with the roof. The tower is higher on the old postcards. We get earthquakes from time to time. The top floor collapsed, and there is no money to restore it,” she explained and held out something wrapped in foil. “My mother asked me to give it to you personally! Gingerbread, she cooks herself! For tea!”

After thanking Dimitra and her mother, I headed for the Tower and, abruptly slowing down, walked around it from the square side, then from the seaside. There was a lock on the fence, a lock on the door, and no light in the windows. However, I could swear by all the Saints, that Monk had entered it just a couple of minutes before!

…I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, so I went out onto the balcony. It was too quiet. Too black the sky. The Moon wanted to tell me something, but the icon of the Virgin Mary at Janis’ shop appeared on the inner screen, and I heard, “Come on, Alice! Remember me, remember!” Yes, there was something important that connected me with the icon, but what? I went back to my room, lay down on the bed, turned off the night light, and tried to fall asleep again.

Somewhere in the Universe

In a building with many doors, people with wings were rushing at lightning speed. One of them, who looked like Guardian Angel, grabbed my hand and quickly led me down the corridor, as if we were late. In the queue at the Information Desk, I spotted the husband of my Moscow neighbor. He smiled and waved at me, wishing me good luck, or did it seem to me? – there was too noisy! – either from the wings rustling, or because at each door there were crowds of people, vigorously discussing something. We went up to the top floor and went through the door with the inscription “Live broadcasting”. A white-robed winged clerk was diligently scribbling words with a feather and an invisible ink in a ghostly book lying on the equally ghostly table. However, everything in the mysterious building seemed rather vague. Having finished with writing, he glanced at us and asked,

“Standard?”

“Yes, Bro,” nodded the Angel.

“What’s your name?” the clerk turned to me, I answered, he wrote down my name, put a tick next to it and handed the book to the Angel. “Put down the dates and time yourself. And sign it. There was a precedent here the other day. I was accused of putting the wrong number. They began to figure it out and found the Guardian’s fault. It was exactly midnight there, and the clock was a little behind!”

“When will it be sent?” asked the Angel, signing the paper.

“We have a new decree, three times a day in live broadcasting, so don’t worry, Bro, it’ll reach everyone! Good luck, Alice!”

I wanted to ask what that meant and where we were, but someone called out to me. I turned around and saw Ray. And instantly… the building was gone. There were no more people, no clerks with wings, just the black sky, the stars, me and Ray. Lightning ran across the sky. It flashed in red zigzags and died down, flashed and died down, but there was no thunder anywhere.

“Ray, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Lightning,” Ray replied calmly, coming close to me.

“What kind of lightning?”

“Telegram”.

“Telegram?” I was surprised. “To whom?”

“To the whole Universe, Alice,” Ray replied and … disappeared.

Ouranoupoli

I woke up. It was still night on Athos. I went out to the balcony. Absolute silence and too black sky, not a cloud, when suddenly … I saw the same flash as in my dream! The sky flashed with red zigzags and died down, flashed and died down, flashed and died down…

38 Before/3 After. House No. 1

Garden of Stones

Somewhere in the Universe

“Now let’s talk about me,” said Saturn, swaying in his rocking chair by the fireplace. “I’m a heavy planet surrounded by many rings. I bring all sorts of restrictions to the Sphere of Life where I find myself. I deprive of something or create obstacles in achieving results. I force a person to work with maximum dedication, take responsibility, exercise strict discipline. At the same time, I’m a symbol of wisdom, strength of the Spirit, reason, intellect and even calculation. I’m quite lonely and conservative. I mean old people, the elder relatives in the family, grandparents, but, as many magi say, I don’t like children, because wise old age is closer to me. I’m strict with children, I prefer mature personalities. At the moment of your incarnation, I’m guesting in the Moon Sphere, and I feel bad here, I don’t like water, so I often sit by the fireplace warming my bones, and you’ll love fireplaces on Earth too. The Moon and I are too different. She lives with emotions. I live with mind. She is chaotic and changeable, and I’m systemic, oppressed by everything that breaks the rules and violates stability, I love constancy. She is the follower, and I’m the leader, moreover, I rigidly dictate my terms and demand unconditional obedience. She is a humanist, and I have a mathematical mindset. She is vague, and I’m extra-precise. She is the wave. I’m the rock. Saturn in Cancer is called an exile.”

“Am I an exile? Are you both, Moon and Saturn, my major planets?”

“There is a conflict, that will exist in your Self throughout the entire incarnation. It’s difficult for the Moon to express a variety of feelings and emotions, and I incline to clarity and limit the quantity. Your task is to process quantity into quality, structuring chaos, build meaningful systems and give them to the world, for example, in a few words that are worth their weight in gold. You can make a career as an excellent organizer and a bossy person, but outside of work, remain soft and follower as the Moon. You’ll be drawn to elder and wise people in general, and with children … telling them bedtime stories, like the Moon, you’ll show extreme severity in education, while selflessly protecting them as a wall, like Saturn. An increased sense of duty will hang on your shoulders as a heavy burden of responsibility.”

“What about my parents? Will I see them before incarnation?”

“Yes, later,” Saturn sighed.

“My soul, not everything is so bad,” the Guardian encouraged me. “If you become a workaholic, you won’t get sick.”

“You are running ahead again,” Saturn reproached the Guardian. “I don’t like lazybones, but I encourage those who work diligently and laboriously, delving into details, digging deep, pondering over the true meaning, classifying and building logical relationships, systematizing data, organizing processes within the strictly specified framework of the Space of Time, and that requires maximum concentration on the subject and, as a consequence, silence and the absence of crowds. You’ll achieve the best results alone, either by working for yourself or on yourself, the latter is a more appropriate expression, since it’s about your Self. In relationships with people, you are extremely reserved and silent. Initially, you take a defensive stance, just in case no one offends you. The hypersensitive Moon is secretive, cautious and distrustful, like Saturn. Impregnable and cold rock, alienated from reality outwardly, you are full of raging waves of feelings inside. Many people will consider you a difficult person to communicate with, your face bears the stamp of excessive seriousness, it’s hard and even strange for you to smile without cause, and there will really be few reasons for joy, while your simple phrases are difficult for ordinary people to interpret, and certainly, with your honesty and thirst for justice few people will get along. As a consequence, you’ll become increasingly silent, more and more withdrawn, and even in crowds you’ll feel desert loneliness. Here is the strict division into ‘I’ and ‘they’.”

“Work on your Self and grow spiritually,” the Guardian consoled. “The fewer superficial contacts you have, the higher you climb the Stairs of Spirit, and the wiser thoughts in a concise form you give out to the world as a result.”

“Angel, you keep trying, as people say, to run ahead of the train. It’s good and right when guarding yours on Earth,” Saturn chuckled, “but we are still in Heaven, and still in House No. 1. Of course, it’s important for Rukh to establish herself in the eyes of the world. There is a strong need for respect and recognition by others, for love, at least by close ones. Not getting the support and approval you deserve, you shouldn’t give up, but work even harder and better, self-organizing, perfecting your Self and the results of your work. This is the process of Self-improvement and honing the skill in Saturn way. I’m not Jupiter, so I don’t recognize anything easy. My favorite earthly saying, ‘Patience and work will overcome everything.’ Without complaints about troubles and obstacles. No looking for someone to blame. No condemnation. Without allowing yourself to be lazy or idle. Without envying anyone. And then, step by step, overcoming hardships and restrictions, even periodically falling down, but getting up, starting all from the very beginning again and persistently and humbly continuing your Path, clenching your willpower into a fist, you’ll be able to climb a high mountain and receive a deserved reward.”

“There isn’t even a bed to sleep in here,” I said thoughtfully.

“You’ll have rest, don’t worry,” the Guardian encouraged me, “in an ascetic mode. Monks, for example, sleep several hours a day.”

“Now about the fortress,” Saturn continued. “You’ll cling with claws to everything that brings you the feeling of safety and security in the outer and inner worlds, based on the principle that good is not sought beyond good. You need guarantees, being especially concerned about the issue of comfortable old age, to create a reliable family, to have your own, albeit small, house-fortress, any real estate, that is, something material. You’ll carefully and reverently treat everything that you get by hard work, and without it, as you understand, nothing will be obtained. When ties are broken or solid ground under your feet is lost, a deep depression is possible.”

“If I understood correctly,” I suddenly remembered, “Saturn gives difficulties and deprives of something, restricts me in some way. So the breakup is going to happen anyway, House No. 1 in the timeline corresponds to the period of childhood, doesn’t it?”

“You are all like your Guardian, running ahead, although your thought is working in the right direction. The most important emotional traumas happen in childhood. Usually, children with Saturn in Cancer, not receiving care and affection, have certain difficulties with their parents and subsequently in their own families with spouses – due to the difficulties in expressing feelings, and with their children – due to strictness in upbringing, which leads to disappointment in people, withdrawal into oneself, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction with life. If everything is fine in the family, the ties may be forcibly severed, the dissolution of the continuity of generations. In this case, one constantly returns to the Past, as for the life-giving source from which one draws strength, and in general lives more in the Past than in the Future, falling into childhood memories and nostalgic for the lost or unfulfilled, has a painful dependence on the Past or on parents. An eternal child at heart, one tries to preserve the connection disappeared into oblivion at least in one’s own inner world, constantly connecting the thread torn by reality, supporting the continuity of generations with all the fibers of the soul. Even if there was no gap, but childhood was spent in cold alienation as for the level of feelings, one will try to compensate the warmth in one’s own family.”

“So my parents won’t love me!” I felt very sad.

“I didn’t say that,” Saturn stated, not without a note of sadness. “The Creator said, ‘Be like children, and you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Anyway, traditions, family values and the Past are very important to you. Now a little about personal life, since the Moon and the Sign of Cancer mean the intimate Sphere too. I deprive of earthly temptations by some restrictions on emotional joys. It’s not you who restrain yourself in passions and don’t enjoy life to the fullest, it’s the set up in your passport. Everything that happens in your destiny, according to the Creator’s plan, is exclusively for your benefit. You may become not just a serious, but a very deep and wise person who sees and is able to express in exact words at least part of the truth that you’ll definitely unearth in the process of working on yourself. And now I’ll show you something interesting, let’s go.”

Saturn took a candle, we left the cell and went down to the Dungeon.

“This is the Well from which you’ll draw your strength,” Saturn commented, “you can look inside.”

I hovered over the Well. It seemed bottomless, but suddenly I noticed the Moon in it!

“It’s not the goal of our journey,” Saturn said, and we flew along the corridors, that resembled an intricate labyrinth.

Suddenly we found ourselves in a beautiful cave with a mountain lake and an unusual garden.

“My Garden of Stones. Sometimes I cross trees to get a unique healing effect.”

We wandered slowly between the trees, and Saturn, not without pride, spoke about the energy contained in the stones and its influence on souls.

“As a child, playing in the yard with girls, when choosing one of the four Realms, you’ll take under your control the Underground one. Later you’ll start looking for stones and make jewelry. You’ll feel stones like the Moon and love them like Saturn. Here is Larimar, for example. The magical stone of the lost Atlantis. It awakens the memory of the Past. Delicate, isn’t it?” Saturn asked, and his gaze became softer. “And this is the Moonstone. It’s yours, Rukh. It knows to fulfill wishes and contributes to the disclosure of creativity. The Moon will give it to you.”

“Saturn gives a penchant for collecting,” the Guardian clarified, “an interest in antiques, history and archeology, due to fixation on the Past with a particular focus on its values. You’ll enjoy diving headlong into the information flow, digging out something interesting and hidden, fishing out rare specimens, analyzing and systematizing data, making collections and showing them to friends, sharing knowledge.”

“The Garden of Stones will bring you joy, even if not much. You’ll find also unique alive icons on Earth. You’ve already seen some of them in my cell… Now I need to rest a bit,” Saturn apologized, and the Guardian and I left for the Library.

Library of the Universe

“Angel, Saturn said he would limit my earthly passions and temptations, and he doesn’t like children. Will I have children?”

“You’re so funny, Rukh!” the Guardian smiled. “You’ll get children, but your Saturn is a wizard. You’ll become a very pretty creature with magical attraction of the opposite sex beings. In order to prevent you from sinking into the abyss of earthly passions, a heavenly tattoo will appear on your earthly body at the moment of incarnation. I’ve recently sent a little mouse to your mother, she got frightened of it and … Any birthmark is a sign of Heaven. Trying to attract attention, people make something similar on their skin, but their sophistication has an artificial flavor. Given the nature of Cancer, you’ll be very shy of the heavenly sign, minimizing the number of contacts in the Sphere of earthly passions.”

We settled down in the chairs of the Reading Hall, the book flew into my hands and opened at the page with “The Mist” miniature.

“There is nothing scary in this book, believe me,” the Guardian reassured me, instantly scanning my feelings.

“So will I never know the cause? What happened in the Future?”

“You’re too fixated on the cause, Rukh. You should read the story about the broken mirrors in the City, which inhabitants left for the World of Mists, ‘And your last thought is ringing like a bell – life is over, and you haven’t managed to do something very, very important…’ You will write that at the age of 13, Rukh.”

Gifts of the Magi

Ouranoupoli

Taking the icons already acquired, I went to the pier at the Tower. The excursion ship used to depart for the foot of the Holy Mountain every morning at 10:30. It ran along the south-western coast, sheltered by neighboring isles and the peninsula Sithonia, only in good weather and only to the foot, since right beyond it, at the cape of the peninsula, there was an abyss with a sharp drop in depth of up to 1,000 meters. The other side of the Athos peninsula was almost always turbulent, so people travelled to pay their respects to the Holy Mountain from Ouranoupoli.

Traveling along the shore, you could admire the natural beauty, but there were many beautiful places on Earth, Mount Athos was unique. According to legend, the mountain was named after the titan Athos, who threw a stone at Poseidon, then the legend ended in two – according to one version, Athos the Titan died, according to another, Poseidon died.

In 48–49 AD, during a storm, the ship with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John the Theologian came to the shores of Athos in the area of the Iviron monastery. The local pagan temples collapsed instantly, the inhabitants converted to Christianity, and the Virgin Mary asked the Creator to give that place to Her, because She liked it so much. Since then, Athos had been considered the Garden of the Virgin, and one of the most famous Athos icons was called the Athos Virgin Mary, or the Abbess of the Holy Mountain.

There were more than 200 cells, hermitages, as well as caves for ascetics, and 20 large monasteries on Athos. One of them was St. Panteleimon (aka Rossikon, or Russik), the Russian one, one Serbian and one Bulgarian, the rest were Greek. The first monastery, Great Lavra, was founded by St. Athanasius the Athonite in 963 on the south-eastern side of the peninsula, but back in 676, the Emperor Constantine transferred the entire peninsula to the eternal property of the monks, and the oldest temple was considered to be the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin not far from the capital of Athos, built in around 335.

The first monastery to appear from the south-western side of Athos was the Bulgarian Zograf with the unpainted icon of St. George, miraculously manifested on the icon board. After Zograf, there was the Greek monastery of the 10th century Docheiariou with the “Quick to Hear” icon, and immediately after it there was Xenophontos with the relics of the Holy Martyrs Marina and Petka Paraskeva and not only.

Each monastery had its own shrines, as well as a library where printed books, ancient manuscripts and papyrus scrolls were stored. I mentally recalled the most famous Athos wonderworking icons of the Virgin Mary:

“Gatekeeper” (Iverskaya, or Portaitissa), painted by Saint Apostle Luke the Evangelist, in Iviron,

“Pantanassa” and “Sacrifice” in Vatopedi,

“Quick to Hear” in Docheiariou,

“Three-handed” and “Milk-Giver” in Hilandar,

“House-Builder” in Great Lavra,

“The Elder” in Pantokratoros,

“Axion Estin” in Karyes,

“Virgin Mary of Jerusalem” and “Virgin Mary of Athos” in Russik,

“Way-Finder” (Hodegetria) in Xenophontos,

“Virgin Mary of the Akathist” in Dionysiou…

Among the famous relics, kept on Mount Athos, there were the Belt of the Virgin Mary in Vatopedi, the head of St. Panteleimon and the foot of Andrew the First-Called in Russik, the relics of John the Baptist in Dionysiou, particles of the Life-Giving Cross, the Gifts of the Magi, etc.

Orthodox Athos had its own rules. Sunset marked midnight, regardless of the clock time. The monks had to eat twice a day – in the morning and in the evening – after the liturgy. They practically didn’t sleep constantly praying for the whole world. Christmas in Ouranoupoli used to fall on December 25, and 5 kilometers away on Athos it was celebrated on January 7, because Athos lived according to the old (Julian) calendar with a difference of 13 days from the calendar of secular Greece, the fixed holidays were celebrated according to the old style. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar, was created by Alexandrian astrologers based on the astronomical principles of Hellenistic Egypt, and introduced on January 01, 45 BC. In Old Russia, the calendar was called the “Circle making Peace/World”. I would call it the Matrix of the Space of Time. The Gregorian calendar (new style) was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 in Catholic countries on the basis of astronomical recalculations made due to the shift of the vernal equinox, which determined the annual dates of Easter, and the mismatch of Easter full moons with astronomical ones. Then the Gregorian calendar was used almost everywhere. When I thought about the high level of astronomy knowledge back in Ancient Egypt and India, I heard the voice of Eternity, “The time of one’s life is a drop in the ocean, Alice, as is the one’s knowledge, in particular yours.”

We were sailing up to Russik, located almost on the shore. In 2016, the monastery was overflowing with pilgrims, celebrating the 1,000 anniversary of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos, and that time they were preparing for St. Panteleimon Day, on August 9, being temporarily closed for pilgrims. About 70 monks and novices were serving in Russik, and their library contained more than 20,000 books and manuscripts. Once upon a time, the glorified St. Silouan the Athonite, helping people attacked by laziness and idleness, lived there.

The next monastery, Xeropotamou, at a level of 200m above the sea, almost above the port of Dafni (or Daphne), possessed, among other relics, the largest part of the Life-Giving Cross with a hole from a nail.

The main pier of Athos on that side of the peninsula, the port of Dafni, was a small jetty. Buses ran on Mount Athos, but, in my opinion, it was better to travel on foot, although easier to get lost. I heard amazing stories from pilgrims about old monks appearing out of nowhere to show the way, and immediately disappearing. To visit Mount Athos, men must obtain a visa (diamonitirion) in advance, since, and especially on holidays, monasteries might not accept pilgrims. Climbing the Holy Mountain, as a rule, started after the blessing by monks already on the territory of Athos. Janis said that more than once, at the foot of the Mountain, his groups had to linger for several days, because the monks didn’t give their blessing for the ascent. Oh, if I had been a man! I was an ordinary girl, and even the princess, on the way to Vatopedi in 422, heard the voice of the Virgin, stopping her not to embarrass the monks. In 1045, Vladimir Monomakh issued a decree that women were not allowed on the territory of Athos, except for the Virgin Mary. There were no female animals on Athos, although some people specified the exceptions, such as chickens and cats, since chickens gave eggs used for tempera colors making needed for icon painting, and cats caught mice. The Athos locals said that a woman-journalist had decided to explore the Holy Mountain a few years before, but she went swimming and was eaten by a shark, which had never been found in the Athos waters. It was interesting, the area of Ouranoupoli used to be called the Great Guard.

The choir of the cliff monastery Simonopetra, “Simeon’s rock”, considered to be the best by the Athos locals. When St. Simeon decided to found a monastery there, the monks resisted – the place was dangerous, and one of them fell into the abyss. Simeon got upset, prayed, and the monk who had fallen from the cliff suddenly returned alive and healthy. Closer to the Holy Mountain, there were the monasteries of Gregoriou and Dionysiou, in the latter the right hand of John the Baptist was kept.

Finally, I was looking at the Mountain, “Hello! What a blessing that You have allowed me to come back here to You!”

The Holy Mountain had an evident pyramid shape. Facing the boat with its concave side, it seemed to me a mirror — it allowed you to see yourself through its eyes. The Mountain scanned our thoughts and feelings, could change Space, Time and people. It resembled the Tibetan Kailash, although it was lower than Kailash – the height above sea level was 2,033 meters. The Mountain used to be covered with a wreath of clouds, even when the sky was cloudless, as a sign that the Virgin was on Athos. Clouds on the Mountain were unusual. Once I saw a wreath of faces of Saints and angels, and then the image of St. George the Victorious. I even managed to photograph St. George on his horse hitting the Dragon with the spear. After that he turned into an ordinary cloud and sailed away. At the top of the Mountain, the Cross was erected and a small temple of the Transfiguration was built. The mysterious 12 ascetic monks lived in the desert there, being invisible even to most Athonite monks. Or rather, one could see them if they allowed it. When one of the 12 ascetics passed into the Other World, one of the monks living on Athos was summoned and suddenly disappeared from his monastery or cell.

A boat with the shrines from St. Pavlou, the nearest monastery to the Mountain, docked to our ship. The monks placed the casket in the center of the joint tables on the lower deck. A queue lined up. People wondered what it was there.

“The Gifts of the Magi!”

I wrote the names in the memorial note, handed it over with the icons for blessing on the Gifts of the Magi to the monk, touched the shrines and put on them my cross, my ring and the wool rosary, woven by monks from the same monastery and purchased by me right on the ship. People came and went, while I stood next to the relics.

“God loves you,” the monk smiled, gave me his blessing and crossed me goodbye.

The monks returned to the monastery, and I stood on the deck and looked at the Mountain. Repeatedly in the history of the Holy Mountain, the monks faced various problems and wanted to leave the place, but the Virgin Mary appeared to them, providing miraculous help, and they stayed. According to legend, one day She would leave the Mountain forever, Her most famous icon, “Gatekeeper”, would disappear from Athos, the Holy Mountain would go under water, and the Apocalypse would come.

---

***

“Leah, have you found out the name of that icon?”

“Yes! Janis called to Athos, and the monks said, ‘Seeking for the Perished’.”

I froze for a moment, and then I took out of my bag the Akathist to the same icon. Leah raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“I read it on the border with Athos every evening, Leah! I went to church school and sang in the temple. There was an icon unknown to me, near which I stood during liturgies, when I was not singing on the solea. Many years passed, and a colleague at work said that the icon was called ‘Seeking for the Perished’. A few years later, in a book of an Orthodox priest, I read that it helps in critical situations, on the verge of death, or suicide, at the loss of hope and support, against drug addiction, they pray to Her for the lost people and ones killed and died not by natural death, for children left without parents. Thus, I realized the icon was mine. I’ll take it from you. After all, I felt it at once, not recognizing, since this is not the Greek type, and not the one from my temple, but definitely it is ‘Seeking for the Perished’. There are special features of the image: the fingers of the Virgin are closed in a strange way, as if a wall surrounds you and doesn’t allow you to collapse into the abyss; Her hair is loose, and there is no headscarf on Her head, as if She had been an ordinary woman.”

Janis came up to us. I took out my book “Temple of the Heart” and handed it to him, but had no time to say anything, since his father appeared and, after saying hello, began to talk in Greek quickly.

“Father Gabriel from Athos is here passing through Ouranoupoli, let’s go to him!” Janis summed up to me. “You can take his blessing. We have known him for a long time. He is a very good person.”

In the next door house Janis introduced us to each other and added that Father Gabriel understood English perfectly, knew many foreign languages, including Arabic and Aramaic, and read ancient manuscripts and relicts in the original.

“What kind of book is it?” Father Gabriel asked me.

“I was just about to ask Janis to transfer, I mean to donate it to the Library of the St. Panteleimon Monastery on Athos.”

I handed the book to Father Gabriel, and he began to examine with interest the cover with the image of two elephants, sitting on a bench in the forest with their backs to the reader and admiring the starry sky, one small and one large. Father Gabriel smiled, stroking their tails.

“This is me, and next to me is my mother,” I smiled. “The book is called “Temple of the Heart”, it consists of three parts: 40 verses like a 40-days monks’ pray for my mother, poems of my church school period, and echoes of the church choir. The book is dedicated to my mother, Patriarch Alexey II and the famous Russian poet Alexander Blok, because he once wrote about a girl who sang in the church choir, almost about me.”

“The Patriarch? Why?” Father Gabriel asked with interest, slowly leafing through the book and trying to read the titles of the verses.

“There was no Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow yet then, the Patriarch served in the church where I studied and sang.”

“Sign it to Hegumen Eulogious, the head of Rossikon. In a couple of days, we celebrate the feast of St. Panteleimon, and we’ll give him your gift!”

“Recently, Father Gabriel has been appointed Archimandrite of Vatopedi,” Janis smiled after returning to the shop. “He is young, but God is moving him upward, he has already served at the Exaltation with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Jerusalem. He wants to take me with him next year. I’ll send you video of their liturgy.”

“While you were away, the icon with Christ holding the globe, surrounded by the Zodiac Circle with planets, left,” Leah informed us.

“Saturn with rings and the Moon,” I remembered that icon.

“Do you believe that the planets influence our destinies?” Leah asked.

“Destinies are written in Heaven, and the Magi were led to Christ by a star,” I answered. “At the airport of Thessaloniki, they sold expensive hand-painted icons depicting the Signs of the Zodiac, and on the sealed certificate it was written that these were copies of fragments of the ancient wall painting of an Athos monastery. Have you seen them, by chance, Janis?”

“No, but it’s quite possible. Have you visited the Mount today? What Athos’ shrines were brought by monks?”

“The Gifts of the Magi.”

Somewhere in the Mist

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”

I am very tired. It’s constantly raining there, and the Mist is spreading, swallowing everything and everyone. And me, it will swallow me too.

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”

The bell is ringing inside me, and we are sitting on a bench by the Thames with Sergey Dobronravov in silence. He is just as silent as me. He seems to be a writer. I’m very tired and I don’t even remember how we got there. Gloomy clouds are crawling through the bare and jails bars-like branches of trees.

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”

A man appears from the Mist. I’m scared to meet him. Why? I fall into the Mist, where we are standing with Sergey on the zero meridian in Greenwich, and I tell him, “Everything will change! Life starts from scratch here!” And we climb the Royal Observatory Tower, but out of the Mist – damn it! – the man reappears –

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”

---

I don’t see his face, but he laughs, maliciously, caustically, and I’m scared again. Signboards, signboards, lots of tables with books. I want to run away from there, away, into the Mist! My consciousness begins to split into atoms. I don’t want to think or to remember anything anymore – away! all these atoms –

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…” –

I see them from the side, they are losing their interconnections and, like soap bubbles of different diameters, scatter away –

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…” –

and burst, burst, burst, and with them invisible rays as access to the sector where my earthly memory is stored — fragment by fragment — go out one after another –

“Lon-Don, Lon-Don…”

It sounds quieter and quieter, and I feel calmer, I’ll soon remember nothing – that means I will become free, and nothing will hold me there any longer… nothing…

“Alice!” a sharp voice was suddenly heard. Ray appeared right in front of me, “Where were you at sea? Come on!”

I shook my head negatively, “I don’t remember.”

“Where did you feel good? Remember now! Quickly!”

I couldn’t resist him. He was stronger than me. And all those atoms started coming back to me, like in a movie rewind, and I…

Ouranoupoli

…I woke up on Athos. It was night outside the window. I went out onto the balcony, looked at the brightest yellow star and heard the phone ring.

“Ray,” I said in a tired voice, “I don’t understand how you can call me.”

“I don’t understand how you still don’t understand that I don’t call you,” he said calmly, but I was too weak to solve his riddles.

“What is happening to me? You know everything there. I’ve hardly dreamed before. And here, this is the third night in a row…”

“Go to the Tower.”

“In Ouranoupoli? It’s been closed for many years.”

“It’s open. From 9:00 to 16:00. Every day except Monday. Get up in the morning and go to the Tower without visiting any of your acquaintances along the way,” Ray said, and the connection broke off.

37 Before/4 After. House No. I

Children of Saturn

Somewhere in the Universe

Saturn was sitting in his armchair by the fireplace.

“Joice Mary NanKivell Loch,” he said, closing the book, “14 Fingers of St. Peter. Joice will serve on Earth for 95 years. Saturn is the planet of old people and long life, but as a guest of your Moon with her emotional reactions… On the one hand, a suppressed Self, on the other, an extraordinary endurance and a deep Self-digging. Reticence, few words speaking and seriousness are not such bad qualities inherent in hermits and monks. Moreover, brevity is the sister of talent. Unlike those who like to chat, promise mountains and then disappear, you are a true friend and always help in deed and word. Saturn is the planet of the wise ones. Saturn children are said to be born old and die young.”

“Can children be born old?”

“No, but it’s in childhood that something happens to them that makes them adults compared to their peers, grandparents play a significant role. Forced early growing up leads to the fact that no matter how old one is later, one tries to compensate for those carefree childhood years, one was deprived of, in order to feel like a real child.”

“Why are people deprived of childhood? Is it fair?” I exclaimed.

“Look how sharply you stand up for justice! Saturn’s children call for justice and reason, but most people think only of themselves. Leave to the Creator the right to decide the destinies. On Earth, it’s impossible to fully comprehend His intentions in order to correctly interpret what is happening. The spiritual path is not strewn with rose petals. Place the soul in comfortable conditions, and in 99% of cases it will lose touch with Heaven, plunging into the mundane and transient. Heaven has other plans for people like you.”

“Saturn is a teacher,” the Guardian clarified. “He gives difficulties as an exam.”

“In the worst case scenario, you’ll turn into a gloomy lazy person, cursing fate, into a miser-materialist, saving up for old age, hating people and Heaven at the same time, fixed on the bad and, as a result, attracting more and more negative events like a snowball. I don’t like such people, and they are doomed to constant physical and moral restrictions up to the deprivation of reason. I hope you’ll humbly accept the hardships of life and begin to radiate Love and Light, turning into a highly spiritual being who serves the world by constant and hard work and imperceptibly ascends to your own, albeit not the highest, Mountain. Saturn at its best is the rock of the Spirit, and no waves of the Moon can break you. In the course of searching for a stone wall somewhere on the side, being the Moon, you will turn into it yourself, being Saturn.”

“Is Saturn in my House No. 1 forever?”

“The planets move in their circle, like the hands of any clocks. The current position of Saturn shows you the Sphere where the major work is to be done. At the control points, the analysis of the soul’s mission on Earth takes place, decisions are made about the further destiny. At the moment of your incarnation, I’m 13 degrees from the point of your first breath, on the border with House No. 2. One degree is conventionally equal to a year of earthly life. Thus all the fundamental Saturn events will occur before your 13th birthday.”

“All? Will there be several?”

“Let’s talk about something pleasant,” Saturn stroked my head. “Each planet can have friendly and hostile relations with other planets. I’m friends with your Venus. She loves art and creative expression and has great taste. I’m good at maths, proportions, rhythm, concentration and hard work. The Moon is a symbol of a rich inner world and depth of feelings. This is a chance to open up through creativity – music, poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture. Don’t accumulate energy within yourself, transform the suffering of the Moon into something beautiful and filled with Love, like Venus, and wise, like Saturn. Speaking of literature, say not much, but deep. An innate low Self-esteem will protect you from pride, and Venus and I will bring well-deserved fame and recognition. Such aspect is found in outstanding figures of culture and art and in great mathematicians. Let’s go to admire the stars on the balcony, since the rain is over!”

We went to the balcony through the next room. The sky became completely cloudless, and the stars were so bright and close that it seemed easy to touch them with hand.

“Look, right above the Tower, there is the Canis Minor Constellation and one of the brightest stars, Procyon. We are in conjunction in one degree. Dangerous star, it promotes not only sudden rise, good fortune and fame, but also downfall. It gives courage and bravery, but enhances irascibility, straightforwardness and honesty, one may offend others with one’s words. If you start to do everything in a hurry or get angry at the world, a cute dog will turn into a mad one and bite you to death. If you treat your work with devotion and work painstakingly and humbly, Procyon will wag your tail and will definitely thank you.”

“Procyon is accented in the passport of Emile Zola the writer,” the Guardian whispered.

“I’m in House No. 1, at the Door to House No. 2, the Sphere of Finance. My influence extends to both Spheres, although I’m responsible for the other two,” said Saturn thoughtfully. “In particular, I manage House No. 7, the Sphere of Partnership and Marriage. Conjunction with Procyon promotes inheritance, gives patronage and support of VIP and old people, partnership with them in business and marriage. But not all that glitters is gold, Rukh, and the details are to be talked about not here.”

Library of the Universe

“Angel, will I have anything good in my life?”

“You’ll have me, isn’t that good?” The Guardian hugged me with his wing, “Life on Earth is short but interesting. You’ll be back before you understand that. Souls descend to serve the world. Happiness in the earthly sense is transient and conditional. At true hard times, remember that there is always someone who is even harder.”

The book opened at the page with the story “Farewell to Childhood”.

“Time doesn’t exist. It’s conditional and relative. You will learn to manage Time when you realize that it doesn’t matter how old you are on Earth. The main thing is who you feel you are.”

Joice the Ghost

Ouranoupoli

Without even having breakfast, I left the house and headed for to the Tower. Unlike many, Ray had never deceived me or said anything for nothing. However, Dimitra, whose icon shop was directly opposite the Tower, couldn’t help but know whether it was open or not.

You could get to the Tower through the central and sea streets, every cat on both of them knew me. I flew along the sea street, praying that no one would call me out, and the prayer worked well. The gate to the courtyard, as well as the door to the Tower, appeared to be open! Two women were talking outside the office on the right.

“Good morning! May I come in? Is it free of charge or not?” I asked, but they continued their conversation, as if nothing had happened and retreated to the room on the left.

“So it’s free,” I decided, and delved inside.

The door in the far left corner led to rooms displaying the finds from excavations on the territory of Athos, including the Zygou Monastery. I froze at the exhibits, studying their description. There were burial vessels dating back to 1100 BC, ritual accessories, copper helmets from the bottom of the sea dated to the 6th century BC, and women’s jewelry in the showcases. I liked especially the ring with a five-pointed star and a bird with open wings, and clay tablets covered with formulas up and down. After examining the exposition of the ground floor, I climbed the wooden stairs and went out to the balcony, with a beautiful view of Mount Athos, the sea and Dimitra’s shop.

Suddenly someone put a hand on my shoulder, I shuddered, “Not free of charge?!” and turned around.

“I’m always glad to welcome guests,” a ghost-woman said smiling.

“Good morning,” I whispered back in confusion.

“I am Joice Mary NanKivell Loch. Call me Joice. I continue to live here, in the Tower, although I left my earthly body in 1982, a little short of my 96th birthday. I’m buried in the local cemetery in Ouranoupoli, and you?”

“I am Alice. I live in Moscow. I’ve come here for summer.”

My answer seemed to surprise Joice. She took my hand.

“Let’s go inside, I’ll tell you about my Tower!”

We entered a tiny room, where there were several narrow and barred windows overlooking the sea, two wooden chairs, a fireplace in the center, a couple of shelves with books, a woven carpet on the wall and a table with … a typewriter!

“Yes, I wrote novels, essays and poems. Here are the survivors.”

I glanced over the old bookshelf, and the title with St. Peter caught my eye.

“Were you born in this Tower?”

“No, in Australia. I loved nature and the country life. However, I wanted to travel. After marriage with Sidney, he was a journalist and also a bit writer, we joined humanitarian missions and in various countries helped people affected by the First World War. In 1923, when the Greek-Turkish War ended, we came here to settle Greek refugees from Turkey. The territory of Ouranoupoli then belonged to the monastery of Vatopedi, the border of Athos was in Trypiti. By agreement with the state, the border was moved to the Zygou monastery, and Vatopedi provided land and buildings, including the Tower, to the refugees. At first, we lived on the island of Ammouliani opposite, and then moved to the Tower. I loved and still love it very much. We are where our heart is, and after death we are drawn to what or to whom we are attached on Earth.”

“Are all souls drawn or only the light ones?”

“Almost every soul has something dark in it. One local resident was tormented by his unfinished business, he lamented and wept, coming to me for consolation. Someone is drawn to the already committed shameful act in order to rewrite the Past, but it’s firmly fixed and unchangeable in the Chronicle of the World. I had a helper called Martha, her son after his death promised to make amends for his fault by helping those still living on Earth.”

“What happened to you after your death?”

“I didn’t realize immediately that I had gone. I continued to ‘eat’ and ‘sleep’, ‘dress me up’ and consider myself a woman. The strongest habit of all ghosts is to visualize belonging to their earthly sex. Having lost the body, you cease to be a woman or a man, you are a soul. Chaotically and unconsciously, I returned to various fragments of the Past, experiencing them again as if ‘here and now’. I saw what hurt me and the people I had helped, the light of their memory warmed the soul. Sometimes I think that we, as earthly individuals, exist as long as we are remembered on Earth. The walls of this Tower keep me in their memory, and some of those who know me personally are still alive in Ouranoupoli.”

“Is Dimitra one of them?”

“Yes, she is, as well as her mother and grandmother. Do you see the outside small building? There was a medical center and medicines were stored there. Once Dimitra, while still a little girl, fell, hurt her knee and ran to me. I washed the wound, bandaged her leg, telling a fairy tale about a sheep, and treated her with sweets.”

“Have you seen the Stairs?”

“Of course, Alice,” Joice smiled. “It’s inside one’s soul. You are moving up or down it even during life. The posthumous state is the soul’s wandering within its Past, crying and grieving over wrong things, getting joy from the Good and Light that it has brought into the world, and as a result, its self-determination based on its attraction to this or that. Everyone has their own Stairway to Heaven. On Athos, the deceased monk resurrected at his own funeral to tell the brothers how the devils nearly had taken him to Hell for his addiction to wine drinking, but good deeds stood up for him and outweighed the cup. Someone is present at the Judgment, someone is not, perhaps being unaware of what is happening.”

“And when the memory of the deceased disappears, then …?”

“It disappears on Earth, not in Heaven. The soul will gradually calm down, freed from memories, both others’ and its own, and …”

A tourist came into the room with a five-year-old daughter. I got frightened that they would see me sitting on an exhibit chair and talking with a ghost, so I abruptly stood up and took a step towards the window, with peripheral vision I noticed the girl approaching Joice and looking at her and at me in surprise.

“Kids see us sometimes,” Joice smiled. “I was really fond of children! We set up an elementary school in Ouranoupoli, and later I got a flock of sheep and taught women to weave woolen carpets. Our works got many awards, all the masterpieces were sold out. The only carpet that left is on the wall here.”

The tourist’s daughter instantly shifted her gaze to the carpet, but her father took her by the hand and led into the next room, while I came up to the bookshelf and noticed a niche with awards.

“Mine ones, yes, though everything earthly is conditional. It’s the unconditional love of the heart that counts. During my lifetime, I felt the support of Heaven. Sometimes I was about to give up, but circumstances changed, and it worked out even better than planned. I saw a lot of suffering and loved people for the courage with which they endured adversity. Every soul comes into the world to serve others, but not every soul remembers this on Earth.”

“I… write too,” I admitted timidly.

“Come at night, let’s read our poems to each other! In the Tower by the sea, at the open Heavenly Gates, where the Other World voices are heard whispering at night, it’s good to write! You know, many writers regret that they had no time to write something important. Earthly affairs drag us into the swamp of fuss, and the most important things are often postponed for the Future. Many ghosts try to whisper the unsaid lines to their colleagues.”

“Joice, have you seen a… Monk here?”

“Monks often come here. There is a chapel on the top floor. It’s closed to tourists, not to ghosts. I don’t want to disturb them. I have two rooms and a balcony, where I watch my village go to sleep in the evening and meet the Sun in the morning. Monks come at night along the underground corridor that connects the Tower with the Zygou monastery, where the border control point is located. Apparently, they are not allowed to Mount Athos, and Zygou is destroyed, the closest option is my chapel.”

“Is there a dungeon in the Tower?!”

“A great labyrinth, yeah! I went down once, but I was afraid to get lost. Perhaps it connects the Tower to all the monasteries. Would you like to explore it?”

Somewhere in the Mist

The Moonlight Sonata… It begins to sound in me softly. From somewhere far away, where everything is foggy, but through the Mist I see …

…black furniture. And I feel sick, that’s how I feel all the Bad, associated with Death, hellish portals to the Lower Astral.

“Sit down,” a male voice says commanding, and I shake my head negatively. “I said, SIT DOWN!”

I want to run away, into the Moonlight Sonata, which sounds louder and louder, but a female voice brings me back, “Don’t leave him! Help him!” Who is it screaming? I don’t know. I can’t remember. I step into the Mist, where the Moonlight Sonata sounds, but out of the Mist emerges…

…a black luxury car.

“You consider me like your man, don’t you?” says a male powerful voice grinning maliciously.

I turn sharply to the right and take a step into the Mist, but I find myself…

…onto a stage flooded with light, where, blinded by the spotlights, they hand me something, I don’t remember what it was. And again, I hear the voice of the one whose face is hidden from me by the Mist,

“I’ll go with you to Venice, and we’ll take Eugene to keep us company.”

Who is Eugene? Why Venice? I don’t understand, but it hurts. I turn sharply to the left and step into the Mist, towards the Moonlight Sonata, which calls me to it, but out of the Mist appears

…my mother. All in black. She doesn’t want… what? – me to go to Venice?

And the voice, that imperious male voice, shouts at me,

“Why did Eugene give you a rose?! And what about you with Victor?!”

Who are these Eugene and Victor? The Mist creeps over my Consciousness, and I start running away, towards the Moon, it’s getting closer and closer, but the female voice stops me, “Don’t leave him! Help him!”

I pause for a moment to remember who they are. In vain! The Moonlight Sonata merges their voices into one, and the Mist draws trees in the park, it beckons me to where … I turn around sharply, take a step in the opposite direction and fall down…

…into a white room, where the same male voice sounds,

“Make me this project, and we’ll definitely go somewhere with you.”

Who is he? And why do I feel so bad that I want to dissolve in the Moonlight Sonata, which pours into me in waves, and I’m no longer pacing, I’m running again, trying to get out of the nightmarish labyrinth, however, out of the Mist emerges…

…a table with candles … I don’t see his face, but he hands me a glass of wine.

“Happy birthday, darling! I want to drink for you to die before me!” and he drinks to the bottom.

“Don’t leave him! Help him!” a female voice is heard, though already much weaker, while the Moonlight Sonata sounds louder and louder, and I hear him shouting,

“Who the hell are you?”

I abruptly get up and leave, without turning around, farther and farther, to the place where the Moonlight Sonata sounds so loudly that I can no longer hear anyone’s voices … No one’s at all… Absolutely …

36 Before/5 After. House No. I

Magic Ring

Somewhere in the Universe

We returned to the Tower and found ourselves in a secret room with book shelves along the walls and a table with a single candlestick in the center. Saturn lit candles, materialized armchairs and invited us to sit down.

“Here is the most interesting, Rukh. These are copies of books from the Library of the Universe. Why do you think they are here?”

“Are they important to you?”

“They are interesting to me. I study them, highlighting and writing something out. I re-read them and underline. Thematically, they relate to one of the Spheres that I’m in charge of. See which one.”

“Death and Magic?!”

“Exactly. Staying in your House of Life, I’m in charge of your Death and Magic (House No. 8), and I help Uranus with his House No. 9 – the Spiritual Path, Teachers.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed, unable to restrain myself, and instantly remembered the Future. “My main planet is you the Death, and you live in my Self?! The major Saturn events will occur before my 13th birthday, so will I die as a child?”

“Not bad for a start,” Saturn looked at the Guardian. “Phenomenal speed of learning. I don’t like splashes of the Moon and chaotic knowledge. The energy of Death is that of Scorpio-Pluto, and in your case, I carry it. Such Saturn-Pluto. The Master of Death in the House of Life is a hard case, it leads either to self-destruction, because Scorpio is inclined to sting himself, being depressed, or to a colossal transformation of personality, giving a person extraordinary vitality and cool blood in extreme situations, such ones survive where all others go to Heaven in a heartbeat. I’ll constantly put you on the threshold of Death. You are a magnet that attracts life-critical situations. However, having experienced Death and the exit of the soul from the body in childhood — I immerse a person in something with head, make one sink to the very bottom instead of floating on the surface — you’ll cease to be afraid of Death! You’ll explore Death with great interest, as a scientist dissects an insect under a microscope! — all types, methods, causes, as well as states of the soul after the transition to the Subtle World. You’ll have an extremely keen sense of Death!”

I silently listened to Saturn and refused to believe it.

“Now about the Magic. The energy of Pluto endows me with magical powers. Our conjunction with Procyon inclines towards the occult. Sirius, the star under which you incarnate, is a sign of those initiated into secret knowledge. And the location of your hypersensitive Moon means an open door to Subtle World. The danger for you is in the following.

First, Pluto throws a person into the pool of earthly passions of carnal love. You’ll be charming and attractive. Plutonic energy turns people into sexual magnets. There is a danger that you’ll sink into the realm of sexual practices, connecting to the energies of the Lower Astral. We’ll have to prematurely recall you from Earth, because such behavior contradicts the Creator’s plans for your incarnation.

Second, having innate paranormal abilities and knowing all the mechanisms of magic, experimenting with the Space of Time, calculating scenarios for the development of events, like a chess player tries to foresee the game 10 moves ahead, and possessing mathematical abilities, as well as influence on people, you’ll start practicing magic and become a hacker of the Matrix.

Third. I’m in charge of the Sphere of Partnership and Marriage, you are attracted to magical people with pronounced Pluto. The relation of Spheres 1–7 (“I” and “they”) means “like attracts the like”, but you are interested in the older, stronger and smarter ones. Sphere No. 7 shows your enemies as well. Sorcerer partners are capable of destroying you. I’m in the degree called “Moth flying to the Light”, of Mars and Pluto energies, which gives painful susceptibility, excessive gullibility, a tendency to fall under the influence of others, a predisposition to violent and mysterious death. The Master of Death in the House of Life is 1 of the 2 components of the self-destruction formula with a return ahead of schedule.”

I jumped in my chair, since the windowsill from the Future appeared in front of me.

“Yes, the second component is also available, it’s the assistant of your Death, Uranus,” Saturn continued gloomily, “a sudden collapse, sudden death.”

“No!” I jumped up from my chair. “I don’t want to be incarnated like that!”

“My soul, calm down,” the Guardian embraced me with wings. “Only in 8 out of 10 cases, people with such formula leave Earth ahead of schedule and on their own. Selene guarantees the Higher Forces support! We’ll do our best to keep you safe!”

“We’ll discuss the options of Death in House No. 8,” Saturn said with a heavy sigh. “Now we are inside your Self, personality. Saturn is the planet of the old ones. Some of your grandparents will be white magician with strong Selene, and someone black magician with strong Pluto. Your childhood will be spent in the atmosphere of Death and Magic. If you survive, you’ll get a chance for a radical transformation of your personality. I plan to send you to the church school at the main Patriarch’s cathedral. You’ll study there about five years, reading a lot and, given my friendship with Venus, writing. Later, Uranus and I will send you some spiritual teachers. Make right conclusions, or at least one,” Saturn smiled. “It seems to be a tiny House with only 13 degrees inside, and how many energies intersect in it!”

I smiled, and we moved into the dungeon to the Well of Memory. Saturn unrolled the tub, the silver bucket fell into the depths and scooped up water.

“Come closer,” he asked.

I stood nearby. Saturn doused me smiling with… no, not with water – a silver stream of flowing ether filled my soul with energy and washed my fears away. He removed the ring with the engraved sign of Saturn from the middle finger of his right hand and gave it to me.

“Accept my tiny gift. One day you’ll find it on Earth, in the monastery of St. Anastasia in Greece. If you don’t pass by, it’ll help you remember me and our conversation.”

Library of the Universe

“Angel, are there 12 Houses in total? Each of them has got something interesting for me like that?”

“Don’t be dramatic. I’m nervous myself! You’ll incarnate and immediately forget everything, and I’ll have to lead you all your life along the edge of the abyss. Unlike others, you need an eye upon you! It doesn’t work just to lay a straw on the ground.”

“Tell me, why will all that happen to me?” I didn’t let up.

“Like Saturn, you’ll never say or do anything without a purpose. What happens to a child is not ‘Why?’, but ‘For what?’, ‘What’s the purpose?’. Many great personalities have the House of Death accented.”

“Who were they on Earth?”

“Well, presidents of countries. You’ll live in the country where…”

“When will I see my mother? Why will she leave me?”

“Nobody said that, it’s just that everything has its time.”

The book about ghosts opened at the page with “The Seal” story about a little girl who saw the seal of Death on people and tried in vain to save them.

“She dialed someone’s number, but no one answered. Anyway, did anyone live in the abandoned house, except… ghosts? Why and to whom did she keep trying to get through?”

Broken Watch

Ammouliani

The sea in the bay nearby Nicolette’s house was heavenly, but for a change I went for magic! Vourvourou was a group of uninhabited islands off the neighboring peninsula of Sithonia. Having floated into the bay, one found oneself in a fairy tale, remembering pirates, a map of hidden treasures, parrots… When the ship stopped, one jumped from the deck into the sea and swam to the island feeling like Robinson.

All the way, the Holy Mountain looked at me, and I looked at it. There were no clouds even over the top, so the Virgin was away on important business. Dimitra told me the day before the abyss at the cape of Athos with a drop of 80 to 1,000 meters really existed, but according to legend, the depth of the abyss was equal to the height of the Mountain – 2,033 meters, which led me to no less deep reflections. Dimitra’s husband, a sailor, answering my question – if anyone had ever fished in that place – said it would have been tantamount to suicide.

The day before, I tortured local residents about a bright yellow multi-beam star moving across the sky. As it turned out, that was Arcturus, “the Guardian of Heaven”, a pulsating giant star, over 7 billion years old, more than 100 times brighter than the Sun. Yes, on the border with the Holy pyramid-like Mountain, located right by the abyss, in the area called by the Greeks the Great Guard, there was the City of Heaven (Uranus-polis), above which the Guardian of Heaven was scanning the space. I jumped off the ship the first, it was magical!

Every time I came to Athos, I received a piece of news about the Gold-Mines, evil gold miners, and I got scared. What would happen to Athos then? Not far from there, a foreign company decided to mine gold. The locals tried to fight against it in every possible way, because highly toxic fumes would poison the sea and the nature of all the peninsulas of Chalkidiki, and drinking water was already disappearing from the mountain of Skouries, where mines were being built. Given the seismological activity, the protective structures, such as a dome over the mine, wouldn’t save anything. However, the protest rallies, as happened in stories with large sums involved, ended in failure. All my acquaintances on Athos were in gloomy expectation of their Apocalypse, when they would have to leave the City of Heaven forever. I asked Janis what the Athos monks said, and he replied, “They pray weeping.”

I returned to the ship by swimming, and it sailed to Ammouliani, the island opposite my bay. In the meantime, dinner was ripe, but someone shouted, “Dolphins!” All the tourists instantly turned into children – they jumped up from their seats, forgot about everything in the world and took pictures of the playful dolphins accompanying the ship. The Holy Mountain looked at me again, and I looked at it. “One of the monks said that the Virgin Mary appeared to him crying for she was leaving Athos,” Janis told me the other day.

We sailed to the luxury beach of Ammouliani – Alikes, and again enjoyed the sea, and then we circled the island on the ship and moored at the pier for a walk around the village. I was wandering down the tiny street, immersed in sad musings over the Gold-Mines, when I was drawn to a gift shop. Having passed the showcases with jewelry, I turned to the exit, but for some reason I took a step back, and my gaze fell on the far table. It couldn’t be true! I swam closer and closer, afraid to frighten my vision away. I didn’t know who He was, but… I knew Him, and silently froze at the hand-painted icon of the Saint standing at the well with a silver bucket in his hand.

“Do you know him?” the store owner called out to me.

“No, but…” I didn’t know how to explain to the Greek that I had repeatedly attended during meditations an unknown monastery on the mountain, where exactly at the very same well the same Monk was pouring holy water from the same bucket on me, what I told the world about in the first part of my novel “The Book of Secret Knowledge” back in September 2009.

“Nobody here knows Him,” the shop owner sighed. “Hieromartyr Philoumenos. They chopped Him with an axe. This Greek monk served in Palestine. He was an archimandrite of the Jerusalem Orthodox Church and the Guardian of Jacob’s Well on the mountain in Samaria, where the meeting of Christ with the Samaritan woman took place, as described in the Gospel of John the Theologian. The water in the Well symbolizes the living water of the Faith, after drinking which one becomes liberated. Philoumenos was canonized on September 11, 2009. His relics were on Mount Zion. He is referred to as ‘Vanquisher of daemons, dispeller of the powers of Darkness’.”

“How much does the icon cost?” I asked and remembered that there was clearly not enough money on the card for a hand-painted one of that size. The store owner hesitated. My heart sank. And he announced exactly the amount I had!

Ouranoupoli

I heard the muffled trill of the phone and opened my eyes – it was easy and even very pleasant to doze off there: the olive tree branches were swaying in the breeze, and the cicadas were providing a lulling background.

“Where are you now?” Ray, as always, appeared unexpectedly.

“On the beach. Dozing off a bit.”

“Do you take your phone with you to the beach?” He chuckled, and he was right.

“Not usually, but apparently I’ve got a premonition you would call!”

“What time is it now?”

“What’s the difference for you?” I was surprised.

“I wonder what time you go to the sea.”

“I don’t know. My watch has been showing something wrong for a long time. I keep wearing it out of habit.”

“Look at the shade of the olives and at the Sun.”

“Aah! It’s about six in the evening!”

“Are you hungry already?”

“Do you want to invite me to dinner?”

“A little later. What did you eat last night?”

I tried to remember, but, apparently, I hadn’t yet fully woken up, and everything was in a heap and foggy in my mind.

“What’s the difference, seafood salad or chicken?”

“It makes no difference. Is there anyone else on the beach?”

“A family by the shore.”

“Come and ask what time it is now. Go with your phone.”

“Excuse me, what time is it now?” I turned to the man, who had already packed their things while his wife was changing the clothes to their children.

The man, having glanced at me briefly, turned to his wife,

“I’m off. Waiting for you in the car.”

I repeated my question to the woman, but she ignored me point-blank.

“Alice, leave them alone, go back to the olives.”

“Ray… Are they ghosts?” I whispered in horror.

“Quite possible. Where were you yesterday?”

“Well… yesterday… what was I doing here yesterday? You know, on Athos you live in such a relaxed way… Ah! I remembered! I took a boat trip to the Mountain!”

“Did the monks bring the Gifts of the Magi from St. Pavlou?”

“No, the Gifts of the Magi were brought last summer. The relics from Xenophontos were yesterday!”

“Did you happen to see the ghost of Joice in Ouranoupoli?”

“There are a lot of ghosts here! Who is that Joice?”

“Don’t go back to your place now. Try dozing off again. Okay?”

Ray’s words alerted me, but I immediately remembered a funny incident and laughed.

“Is there a spider hiding in there? So do I have to wait until you drive it away with the power of thought?”

“Almost there,” Ray chuckled.

Somewhere in the Mist

I hear the Moonlight Sonata and fall into the Mist…

A Christmas skating rink was set up on Red Square. It was fabulous in the evening there as it should be on New Year’s Eve. Valery kept me company. He had visited the monastery of St. Panteleimon on Athos, stayed in Ouranoupoli, met Dimitra and Janis, bought icons. I took him to Nea Roda to the icon painted by Luke the Evangelist, but he felt nothing as well as in Russik.

The phone rang, and the inscription on the screen in English said “Mount Athos”.

“Alice, Merry Christmas!” I heard the familiar voice of Janis.

“Merry Christmas, Janis!”

We exchanged congratulations and said goodbye until August. I sent him a photo of our Red Square with chimes. He sent me a photo from an Athos monastery. I smiled and made a wish – to return to Athos, while Valery dreamt of a hot discount trip to Turkey.

The Moonlight Sonata is getting louder…

Eugene terrorized me with calls, and I hadn’t even switched to work with them yet. We had been introduced a fortnight before, they offered me to make a project from scratch. He asked my address, but I came to the center myself. We were sitting in a restaurant. He retold me his biography and offered to live with him in Thailand.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I’ve said. I live abroad. I visit Moscow from time to time. You’ll work on the project in absentia. That’s how we worked last winter. You can’t imagine how great it is! I had a mistress, but we have already broken up, and all sorts of drugs, and when we made love, it was very hot!”

Ray looked at us, sitting at the next table, and laughed.

“You are lucky, Alice!”

I could hear nothing anymore, except for the Moonlight Sonata, getting louder and louder inside me, but…

…

Victor drove me to the underground and stopped the car. Recently, we had often communicated working on that project.

“I can’t kiss you with his lips, but…” he said, and there was an awkward pause, and I saw Ray in the mirror, in the back seat, behind us, he said to me,

“Hug him, Alice, as a friend. Don’t be cruel, you’re not me. He’s just like you, one of the few who means no harm to you.”

I took Victor’s hand keeping silent, but suddenly… Oh no! The Moonlight Sonata was stopped by the sound of a slamming door! I saw myself walking out into the night. And I was still inside there, holding Victor by the hand! As a friend, as one who knew how much I was hurt, to whom I could tell everything, and who …

“Ray! No!!!” I screamed into the mirror.

“Yes, Alice, yes…”

And I instantly woke up… On Athos…

35 Before/6 After. House No. 2

Treasure Island

Somewhere in the Universe

“Be bolder, Rukh, it’s not scary there!” the Guardian smiled as we approached House No. 2.

“What is there?”

“Treasures, exclusively earthly.”

I closed my eyes, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. As soon as I felt something slippery under my feet, I was abruptly thrown up and then down, I opened my eyes and … gigantic waves came crashing down on me, throwing me into the raging element! Ominous sky, sparkling lightning, the raft with my Guardian sailing away… I went to the bottom like a stone, and a shark rushed towards me, maliciously baring its teeth. Suddenly, an old man in bright robes with an orange cap on his head appeared, picking me up at the very bottom. He lifted me up, returned me to the raft with the Guardian and disappeared. The storm was gradually subsiding. The clouds were moving away.

“Glory to Saint Spyridon! Good sign, Rukh! So, on Earth, he will help you. Don’t forget to give him a new pair of slippers!”

“Now I see why there is a skull with the sign ‘Remember the Death’ on the door of the Tower of My Life!”

“There are also violets blooming there with butterflies fluttering above them as a symbol of transformation and immortality.”

“Why are you always smiling, Angel?”

“Because you become more and more human-like forgetting that you can’t drown yet.”

“Where are we?” I looked around, but there was neither land nor treasures.

“In the Sphere of your finances, material wealth, property and savings, your energy reserve, therefore — physical body nutrition, earthly goods.”

“What kind of earthly wealth are you talking about here? There is only water all around!”

“Steer your raft!”

“I have no oars.”

“By the power of thought and intuition! The Moon is in charge of your finances. You have a nose for money, you always feel where treasures are buried!”

“Ugh,” I breathed out and realized that I had to swim to the right.

Soon the Moon disappeared, the Sun rose, and an island loomed on the horizon.

“There will be also some Sun in cold waters of your life,” the Guardian smiled. “Earnings thanks to intuition and common sense. It’s very good to see here the Sun, a friend of your Moon, although the Sun didn’t appear immediately. Saturn is half a step away from House No. 2, even if he were three steps away, in fact, he is present here invisibly and exerts his influence.”

“Uninhabited?” I asked when we landed.

“Yes, now find your treasures and get food.”

“What food can one find here?” I was surprised, stepping onto the shore, where there was nothing but rocks and unknown trees.

“Why not? Fish swim in the sea and trees bear fruit. Conclusions?”

“Not much!”

“As your granny will say, your whole life, Alice, is continuous fasting!”

“Isn’t it easier to go straight to a monastery?”

“Easier, I agree. So, seafood. Ascetic diet, twice a day and whatever God sends. Not good in terms of getting energy, but you’ll get no dependence on earthly food and no sin of gluttony. True, if you don’t eat systematically, the digestive system will suffer, there will be a tendency to anemia and exhaustion. As a child, you’ll have not much food.”

I walked along the shore and turned into a thicket, where I immediately came across … a hut.

“My property?”

“Real estate is in House No. 4, but they say on Earth, with a sweetheart there’s heaven in a hut!”

“Are you kidding?” I exclaimed. “Will I live in a hut?”

“Many Saints didn’t even have a hut on Earth!”

“Saints, mind you! Not ordinary people like me!”

“They are not born Saints, they become Saints. And are you ordinary? Look what’s there inside.”

The hut, in fact, turned out to be very nice. There was a small window, a kid’s stool and a table with a checkered notebook and a pen on it inside. However, I was drawn into a far corner, where something was clearly wrong with the hay-strewn floor. I pulled the straws apart and discovered a hiding place with a box buried in the ground. It contained sea pebbles and a bunch of various keys. I left the hut in confusion.

“Well, how do you like your grandfather’s legacy?” the Guardian asked. “He’ll build you a hut in the garden of your summer house. You’ll read and write inside. Your grandfather loves nature, and you’ll love it too.”

Suddenly the sky turned black, lightning flashed and thunder roared.

“Uranus is naughty! Let’s go to the hut, Angel! It’s going to rain!”

I turned to the hut, but lightning struck the tree to which the hut was attached, and then, catching fire, it immediately disappeared along with my legacy, as well as with Uranus. The sky instantly cleared, and the Sun shone again.

“Oh no!” I screamed. “Deprivation, restrictions and … ashes in the end?”

“Restrictions in money, especially in childhood, yes. Money is earned by your own labor, the amount received is always less than the effort expended. Lack of stability, no solid ground underfoot. The Moon easily parts with money, while Saturn saves it, as a reliable foundation and a symbol of security. Deprivation in childhood forces people to look for stability and guarantees for reserve because of the fear of poverty in old age. Anyway, wisdom and practicality will prevent you from turning into a miser. In any case, you’ll swim out, Saint Spyridon will help you.”

“So where is the money?” I asked, looking around.

“The Moon is not a friend of Saturn, so you are deprived of financial support from the family. You hardly receive any legacy, since Uranus is a symbol of sudden collapses due to circumstances beyond your control, such as broken promises, theft of property …”

“Will the legacy be burned?”

“The property may be burnt or taken away. The will will be rewritten to another person at the last moment. House No. 8 is connected with other people’s capital. You’ll have a lot of temptations – risky or illegal financial schemes, gambling, balancing on the verge of collapse. There are no chances for financing from Sphere No. 5, loved ones and children, you have an evil Pluto there, he’ll use your sniffing for money for his selfish purposes.”

“My Saturn controls also the Sphere of Partnership, Marriage and Enemies, so are my partners and enemies wealthy?”

“You can marry a wealthy person or a parasite, taking away what you have earned with difficulty. It gives a tendency to constant disputes over property up to lawsuits. It’s better for you to have the same scale of values with partners. Otherwise, they can cheat you, leave without money. Let’s suppose the case. You are fundamentally honest and straightforward (Saturn in House No. 1). You get a higher education in the field of finance (Saturn helps Uranus with House No. 9 in House No. 2). Some Pluto (the Master of House No. 6, your job) appoints you (Venus in House No. 10) to manage finances in a large company (Saturn the Master of House No. 8,7). You can brilliantly manage other people’s capital and organize any business from scratch, brainstorm projects with a sober mind and implement them in the best way thanks to the sixth sense, but you discover something bad in the company – fraud, theft, or you realize that the financial model of the business is initially unprofitable. As an honest person, you tell Pluto the truth, but he doesn’t need it or it’s not profitable for him.”

“Why doesn’t he need the truth?” I jumped at the injustice.

“Because you have illusions at job (Neptune in House No. 6), and your Pluto has Neptune as the Master of his death and bankruptcy. Neptune puts pink glasses on Pluto and blows fog in his eyes, and that’s it, Rukh! You wanted to save Pluto, and he kicked you out overnight without paying anything (Uranus helps Saturn with Houses No. 7,8).”

“Wow!” I exclaimed and bit my lip in annoyance. “Life is fair!”

“You’ll get a good education – both church and financial (Saturn-Uranus), and humanitarian and linguistic (Moon-Uranus), which will help you realize your Self in the Sphere of Uranus – House No. 9, including work in foreign companies / with foreigners, in a foreign country, in publishing business, in the field of higher education, spiritual practices, tourism, sales items related to spirituality; but without stable income.”

“Where can I get money?”

“This is a mystery shrouded in darkness,” the Guardian chuckled. “Your Moon, the manager of Finance, is in the House of Mystery – secret sources of income, income from secrets and everything mysterious and mystical, through psychic abilities and Lunar sniffing, from work in closed organizations, in isolated places, on islands, in exile, in prison or colonies, monasteries, hospitals… Big capital and real estate are connected with Jupiter, it doesn’t smell him here, but you have to be friends with him! He is in opposition with Uranus and gives less than you deserve, or he will suddenly change his mind, or go bankrupt. Your Sphere of Patrons is strong, you won’t die of hunger, and, as one astrologer said, ‘the sultry winds of the desert dry up the oasis of my selfishness’. Money can’t buy happiness. Patience, humility and hard work! Saturn patronizes wise and old people, is friends with Venus, symbol of cash capital, in House of Status – money from status, career, from men, boss, although not big capital. Suitable professions are connected with creativity, you value emotional joy. Saturn and Venus love art and collecting. What did you see in Saturn Tower?”

“Books, icons and stones… Look, what is there?!” I exclaimed, noticing a strange ship on the horizon.

“It’s time for us to go to the Library, some pirates are about to land on the island!”

Library of the Universe

We reached the Reading Hall in absolute silence. I had neither the energy nor the desire to ask anything. The book about ghosts opened at the page with the story “House by the station.”

“In the evenings, my Vasily and your grandfather are talking about apple trees. Did you see what happened to our garden here? We remember our Past telling stories. And in general, sometimes we play cards, sometimes checkers, less often chess… You’ll see them tonight, too. They’ll be glad to meet you here! If you want, take these keys forever. I kept them for you, for whom else?.. I always knew you would be back!”

Corfu

Ouranoupoli

I moved along the walls with icons in Janis’ shop, and one of the Saints followed me with his eyes. I couldn’t stand it and took the icon in my hands.

“Saint Spyridon, Bishop of Trimythous, the Wonderworker,” said Janis. “We love him very much. He lived in Cyprus in the city of Trimythous in the 3rd-4th centuries, and still works miracles.”

“Why is he wearing a hat, and what is the strange thing with fire in his hand?” I asked.

“It’s the shepherd’s cap, he grazed the sheep, but after the death of his wife and daughter, he devoted himself to serving God and was appointed bishop. Spyridon served in the temple with angels singing prayers, people heard them. He performed many miracles – healed and resurrected the dead, cast out demons, caused rain in the drought, water streams parted in front of him. In 325, at the 1st Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, there was a dispute about God and the unity of the Holy Trinity. Spyridon was an uneducated person, but he took a tile and prayed, so the tile broke into its constituent elements – the water flowed out, the fire soared up, the earth remained – as three in one. God gave Spyridon many spiritual gifts. He saw through people, foresaw events, including the date of his death. He died during prayer.”

“A girl came to us once,” Leah remembered. “She was offered a job in another city, and her diploma was lost on the eve of departure. Most likely, tiding the house up, her mother accidentally threw it away. At night, the girl slept with the balcony door open. In drowsiness, she seemed to hear someone entering the room through the balcony and placing papers on the table. So, in the morning, she found the diploma on the table! She bought an icon with Spyridon from us and took it to Corfu along with slippers. Spyridon, helping people, wears out his slippers, so he is pleased when people bring new ones as a token of gratitude.”

“What do you mean?” I was surprised.

“His body is alive and soft,” Leah answered calmly. “The temperature is 36,6. Even scientists examined him. The shrine with the relics has been in Corfu since the 15th century. When priests cannot open the shrine, Spyridon is absent on business, the tapping in the shrine means he has returned. Sometimes they find wet clothes and algae inside, as he helped at sea. They say that in other churches with particles of his relics, tapping is heard too, the door to the relics opens and closes by itself. Spyridon’s slippers are wearing out from walking, priests change them, then cut and distribute to pilgrims the worn-out ones.”

Leah left us and after returning handed me a paper square with the stamp of Spyridon.

“From his relics! Put it in your wallet for money.”

“Thank you! So does he help with finances?”

“He helped the poor, gave out money,” Janis said, “but he was strict, sent rain on a stingy rich man who sold bread three times more the price. Greedy people tried to deceive him. The merchant didn’t pay for one of the 100 goats, so that goat returned from the merchant to Spyridon.”

“One day, thieves decided to steal sheep from Spyridon,” Leah continued, “and they couldn’t get out of the sheepfold overnight, as if tied hand and foot. Spyridon came in the morning, urged not to follow the path of Darkness, gave a sheep each and said, ‘you haven’t suffered here all night for nothing’.”

“He turned snakes into gold,” Janis added. “Once he showed a rich man the money turning into a snake and crawling away. As John Krestiankin said, if they prayed to St. Spyridon, they would have got house for a long time. Spyridon helps also with employment, in commercial and trade matters, to farmers, cattle breeders.”

“Corfu, with the relics of Spyridon, wasn’t captured by the Turks,” Leah continued. “And the bombs of the Second World War fell at an angle – into the sea, the temple with the relics remained untouched. You can go to him by plane from Thessaloniki or by ferry from Igoumenitsa. Four times a year they make a religious procession with the relics of Spyridon around the island. People run under the shrine, many are healed. In the temple, you’ll see the beaten up lamp, gifted by the Italian admiral, who decided to convert the altar into a Catholic one at the beginning of the 18th century. Spyridon twice appeared to the Italian in a dream with a warning, but work began. A storm raged at night, the Saint left the shrine, went out to the gate, and three tongues of flame from the bell tower hit the gunpowder warehouse, the admiral and his workers were killed, and the lamp in the temple fell and received a huge dent. Oh, I’ve almost forgotten! Go to the dungeon of the temple, Spyridon’s rings are sold there!”

***

I ordered fresh orange juice in a cafe on the sea street. Kiri ran up to me.

“The customer is looking for money icons. I told her about Spyridon, and she asks others!”

“In childhood, I had the only icon called ‘Unexpected Joy’. It depicts a sinner praying in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary. Grandma said it helped with money. Rather, with sudden joy when there’s no hope. At the age of 13, I was baptized in the Church of Unexpected Joy.”

“I don’t think it was an accident! We say icons choose themselves which house to go to serve. Anyhow, I don’t have ‘Unexpected Joy’. What else?”

“Well, ‘Joy of All Who Sorrow’ with coins. Usually the image is painted without money. During a fire in a church of St. Petersburg, the usual icon wasn’t damaged, because some coins from the alms bowl miraculously stuck to it. If you have lost something, as health, work, money or hope, the Virgin will help you get it again through the angels.”

“I haven’t that one either! I have ‘Economissa’ from Athos. In the 10th century, the Virgin appeared to St. Athanasius the Athonite, the founder of Great Lavra, when the monks, due to lack of food, decided to leave the Mountain. ‘Don’t leave the monastery, I’ll take it under my protection, and you’ll always have food.’ So, Athanasius returned and found their cellars full. The image of his vision called ‘Economissa’, or ‘House-Builder’, or ‘The House Lady’, is located in Great Lavra. It helps in solving material problems, saves from bankruptcy and hunger. Is it known in Russia?”

“Yes, the image was prayed to in the besieged Leningrad.”

Corfu

Corfu, or Kerkyra, also called as “the City of castles”, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea and a town with a strong Venetian influence, since it belonged to Venice for about 400 years, was under UNESCO patronage.

I stood praying in the temple of St. Spyridon, in line to his relics. The shrine was set to the right of the altar gates in a special aisle, which was periodically opened for pilgrims. Having entered the chapel with indescribable trepidation, I passed the slippers to the priest standing at the feet of Spyridon, and he immediately placed them in the open shrine, and then I gave the icons I had acquired on Athos for blessing on the relics. Mentally thanking Spyridon for the help already rendered to me and making another request, I leaned towards the head of the Saint and caught his gaze. An inexpressible radiance emanating from his eye sockets was a flood of pure Light. The priest standing at the head board returned the blessed icons to me, and I left the chapel.

I noticed a strange Monk in the temple. Where had we met before? On Athos? There was a thick fog in my head, and everything in it swirled, mixed up and melted. Soon the Monk disappeared, I calmed down and, without difficulty remembering my relatives and friends, handed over the memorial notes to the priest, and then went down to the icon shop, located under the temple somewhere on the left.

I asked about the ring of St. Spyridon, the monk gave me an appraising look and offered to follow him into the dungeon. In a distant cell, he took out a box of rings with an engraved and gilded image of the Saint and a prayer on the back side.

“We don’t sell them in the temple shop unless someone really needs. They are made out of silver plates that we hang on the shrine for a while.”

Joyful from the acquisition of the treasured ring, I went to the church of John the Baptist and, after handing over the memorial note, stood in line for the relics, which the priest had took out from the altar. Having kissed the relics, I turned to the exit, but the priest stopped me, pointing to my cross purchased at Janis’ shop. He blessed it and passed my cross back to me, then touched my forehead with a particle of the Life-Giving Cross, and strong energy waves ran through my body.

I was walking around the town when a familiar voice called out to me.

“Not Athos, I may appear here,” Ray explained. “Shall we go to a cafe? How are you?”

“Great, and you? Don’t you want to leave, or they don’t let you go?”

“Are sorcerers allowed into Heavens?” he grinned, and we settled down in a cafe by the sea.

“You didn’t believe in life after death, did you? Oh, Ray, why did you use your magical powers against people? What all these millions and the Cote d’Azur for? Did they bring you happiness? You ended up losing almost everything you had got. Are there any devils? Is there a Hell?”

“Both, Hell and devils.”

“Have you seen them?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t believe in them, and anyway you have seen them!” I didn’t let up.

“Are you hungry?” Ray asked, clearly not eager to tell me about the devils.

“No, and you? Do they eat anything there?”

“Sinners are fried in pans and then eaten!”

“However, you haven’t been fried yet!”

“It’s not evening yet. Have you noticed anything strange? What seems to be wrong? And what kind of dreams do you have?”

“I see a monk,” I admitted, “today at Spyridon’s temple, and before that on Athos. I rarely dream about something or don’t remember my dreams.”

“What am I to do with you?” Ray said thoughtfully. “Tell me where are you now?”

Suddenly, something made me shift my gaze from Ray to the crowd of passers-by, and I saw … myself, sitting down at the next table! Ray glanced at my copy and then at me.

“Ray,” I said in horror, “are you conjuring me?!”

“You’ve guessed it wrong. I really don’t know what to do with you. You don’t remember anything, or rather, you remember selectively and you are not aware of reality, therefore you see neither devils nor angels. You are tightly stuck in your Past, wandering through the labyrinth of memory.”

I got up, walked over to myself at the next table, called out – in vain, and returned to Ray.

“Let’s suppose I’m stuck in the Past, but where is my Present?”

“It’s no longer on Earth, Alice. You are dead.”

I screamed in horror at such a sudden thought and… woke up…

It was deep night on Athos.

34 Before/7 After. House No. 3

Winged Lion

Somewhere in the Universe

“You won’t believe, it’s sunny there!” the Guardian smiled at the door to House No. 3.

I squeezed my eyes shut and stepped inside. When I opened my eyes, right in front of me, I found a wide-open, rocky-toothed mouth!

“No!” I yelled, clinging to the Guardian, and the mouth immediately shut.

“Well, I’m sorry, I’ve just yawned,” the Lion said calmly. “I’ve been looking forward to see you, and the Sun is baking in full!”

The Lion, not at all aggressive, turned out to be very amiable. He stroked me with the brush of his tail to make me calm down, stretched out his paw and said in a deep voice,

“Actually, I’m a kitten, a big one. Just don’t tell anyone or they’ll stop taking me seriously! House No. 3 is the Sphere of Close Contacts, brothers and sisters, short-term local trips; commerce and business; elementary education and the Word, oratory and literature in terms of writing, not publishing, since publishing is handled in House No. 9. You can pet me, I don’t bite.”

“Where are we?” I asked the Lion, shaking his paw and scratching him behind the ear. “There’s nothing around here, except the Sun baking.”

“That’s right, we are in the desert.”

“Desert? Is it the Sphere of my Close Contacts?”

“For a lonely soul, even any crowd is a desert,” murmured the Lion. “This phrase was read in Heaven and voiced on Earth by Chekhov, the writer.”

“Nice to meet you, Rukh!” flashing a sunny smile, the suddenly manifested Star said. “I am Acubens, or Sertan, according to the astronomer Bayer’s classification of 1603, Alpha Cancri, I correspond to the elements of Fire. I’m a patroness, guiding strange and lonely people, including holy fools, prophets, astrologers and writers. I give the opportunity to penetrate into the World, where the Past and the Future coexist, and to learn something to transfer into reality.”

“Sertan is a magician, a star of revelations and prophecies. She brings surprise gifts in the Sphere of her location!” added the Lion and spread his wings.

“Wow, you are winged!” I exclaimed, and the Lion purred contentedly. “We are in the desert! What kind of gifts are we talking about?”

“In deserts, magical mirages live and revelations are heard. The hermits retreat here to get closer to Heaven,” the Guardian encouraged me. “Sertan has the features of Saturn and Mercury, which is good, because she is in the Sphere of Mercury, the Word. Your words will be a life-giving source.”

“Sertan gives strength to survive in harsh conditions,” said the Lion. “She is also a symbol of the Egyptian scarab beetle, the resurrection of the soul, the source of Eternal Life, which logically complements the Sun, the Higher Self, your life-giver.”

“Wherever I look, there’s the seal of Saturn,” I sighed.

“They call me refuge and hidden place,” Sertan continued. “Experiencing pain, you’ll retreat here and create something spiritual as required by the energy of Saturn.”

“Sertan is clearly expressed in Pope John Paul II and in Michelangelo, who painted the Last Judgment,” the Guardian added. “More often the star promotes people in the field of literature, in the study of stars and in public affairs.”

“Now I’ll tell you about myself,” the Lion purred. “Let’s fly over the desert! Get on my back and hold on tight.”

I grabbed the Lion’s lush mane, the Guardian waved his wing at us, and we took off.

“Do you know why I am winged? I love catchy words. They fly in the air, I hunt and catch them, and then play with them,” said the Lion with a smile. “People with the Lion Zodiacal Sign in House No. 3 are famous for their strength in creative thinking. A wide flight of thought plus imagination and ingenuity is the key to success and self-realization in the field of art. Sphere No. 3, associated with the Word and the ability to express thoughts, is often flooded with light at birth of writers. Lion is a temperamental creature, he leads the masses, has the flame of the Eternal Fire burning, that can ignite others. Knowledge of foreign languages is a plus. A good position for theater and film actors, I have pronounced stage drama skills. Lion needs listeners for self-realization.”

“Are there many listeners in the desert?!”

“The smallest gold coin is the most expensive, although you are interested in the global, since Lion is the king of beasts, and kings don’t think small things. The king generously takes his subjects under his guardianship, so you tend to patronize and help others. Drive away from yourself those who are cunning, running and dodging in every possible way. What do you see there, in the oasis?”

“The Lion King?” I supposed, noticing a strange man in a crown, with a book and a pen in his hands.

“King David, prophet and forefather of Christ. He reigned for forty years and was considered an ideal ruler, although at first, he guided sheep like an ordinary shepherd, but courageously fought with a lion, protecting them. Then David became a brave warrior. He united Israel and returned the Ark of the Covenant, the stone Tablets with the 10 Commandments, to the Tabernacle on Mount Zion, where his earthly 70-year-old body was buried. David planned to build the Temple, but it was his equally illustrious son Solomon who did it. However, possessing eloquence and creative gifts, during his lifetime on Earth, David played musical instruments perfectly, and as a result left an indelible mark as a psalmist. His hymns from the Book of Psalms are still recited in Orthodox churches.”

“Did Solomon write something too?”

“Yes, but I suggest returning to the Lions. In communication, they are straightforward, though domineering and sometimes stubborn. I despise traitors and cowards, but I tend to deify those who give me Knowledge. From the moment of incarnation, the thirst for knowledge will grow in you, as people say, by leaps and bounds, which disposes you to read, but not all that glitters is gold, look for wise books. Travels and new acquaintances contribute to the increase of knowledge and inspiration.”

The City-on-the-Water appeared on the horizon.

“What a beauty! How did it end up here in the desert?”

“It’s a mirage, Rukh, though realistic enough. The City-on-the-Water exists in earthly reality, and you’ll definitely visit it. At least, because I’m its symbol,” the Lion purred, and we descended to the central square of the mirage City and wandered to the main Cathedral.

“It’s all lions here!” I exclaimed.

“The winged lion with an open book is a symbol not so much of Venice as of Mark the Evangelist. His relics were smuggled out of Alexandria occupied by Muslims. The body was hidden in a basket and covered with pig carcasses so that non-Christians, who considered the pig a forbidden animal, couldn’t touch the cargo. Since then, the relics have been in Venice in the main Cathedral. Mark’s mother was a preacher of Christ, believers gathered in their house. As a result, Mark became a disciple of the Apostle Peter, from whose words he wrote the Gospel. Mark founded Christian Church in Egypt, became the first bishop of Alexandria, he is considered the patron Saint of the Copts, Egyptian Christians who called Mark ‘the God-seer’. He died on the way to his execution, having been sentenced by the pagans in 68 AD.”

“Why is his symbol a winged lion and not another animal?”

“Many prophets, including Ezekiel in the 6th century BC, had access to the Subtle World and saw a creature with four faces – the Tetramorph: a man, a lion, a calf and an eagle. The revelation of John the Theologian speaks of 4 separate beings – the guardians of the 4 corners of the Throne of God, the 4 parts of Paradise, later of the 4 elements and East-West-South-North directions. In the 4th century, Saint Jerome substantiated the connection between the Evangelists and their images. Mark’s Gospel begins as ‘A Voice of One Calling in the Wilderness’, which early Christians associated with the roar of a lion. Lion is a symbol of power and omnipotence, and one of the central themes of Mark’s Gospel is the theme of the power and omnipotence of God. People argued about the correct distribution of the Tetramorph symbols among the Evangelists, but it was on Mark that there were no disagreements. Moreover, it was his Gospel that was used by Matthew and Luke when writing their own.”

“So you are the patron of writers,” I smiled.

“Evangelists are patrons of writers. You’ll find the icon of the Four Evangelists on Earth and remember me,” purred the Lion. “Perhaps you’ll remember me earlier, in Venice. It’s no coincidence that it attracts writers and poets, some are even buried on its island-cemetery.”

“Are poets singers of psalms?”

“Poets are writers who express thoughts concisely. In fact, writers are magicians. The word is a great thing, Rukh. It can be used to kill and resurrect, to change Time, events and scripts of Destiny. You can view hypothetical scenarios, having retired to the desert, and then rewrite them, turning the desired chain of events into the right direction with the Word, after which it materializes on Earth.”

“It’s too complicated,” I sighed.

“Lions are enterprising and resourceful, but always lack time,” said the Lion thoughtfully. “Your Sphere of the Word starts in the degree of popularity, fertility, writing talent, foresight. It’s the degree of facing the Truth, ‘a figure with the face covered with a veil, sitting on a rock, points to a brightly radiating Eye in the air directly in front,’ so a stargazer of the Silver Age described this degree. The soul, often alone, is endowed with prophetic power, it’s able to see Another Reality, eclipsed by the crowd.”

Library of the Universe

“Did you enjoy the trip?” the Guardian asked, taking a seat in the Reading Hall.

“The Lion is just a big cat. I don’t know which is better, to drown at the bottom of the raging sea or to die of thirst in the desert.”

“The desert is the inner state of your soul. What have you seen?”

“King David and the City-on-the-Water with St. Mark’s Cathedral.”

“Not bad. By the way, King David had a magical seal, which he inherited to his son Solomon, the sign of an eight-pointed star on a ring that has power over the spirits of the Lower Astral.”

“I haven’t seen the ring.”

“It’s for the best, since you are not allowed to practice magic.”

“The Lion said I could rewrite the scripts of Destiny!”

“You are able to read various scenarios of the Future in the Tablets, but you must not violate the Laws of Heaven by breaking the Matrix, like hackers do with IT-programs in order to change the codes within certain areas.”

“I don’t understand. What is the Matrix? How can it be hacked?”

“The Time Space Matrix. For now, remember that the Sun controls your Sphere No. 3 and is the most powerful planet, along with the Moon. Your strength is in the Word, Rukh! A good story is that ‘Cat’s Name’.”

“What name?” I was surprised.

“Alice. So they call cats in some countries. The story is written on behalf of a dog.”

“I have never understood human nature, and probably I will never do. But why people, who, unlike dogs, have the gift of speech, are not able to understand themselves and each other just to be happy?”

Evangelists

Ouranoupoli

“What a joy to be here, on earth, where St. Paisios and St. Athanasius, John the Theologian and the Virgin Mary walked once!” I thought.

To my left, in the shade of the olives, there was a baby carriage. Parents left their daughter and went for swimming. The girl wiggled, and an old woman instantly flew up to her. She started cradling her granddaughter, then turned to me, clearly lacking for communication.

“What would they do without us? We are from Austria. My husband and I have been coming here since 1966. At first, there were no houses in the bay, only in Ouranoupoli. We found this beach. It’s a magical place, isn’t it? When several houses were built on the rock above the bay, we came to stay in the blue and white one. Now we’ve come with our son, his wife and their daughter. Should someone take care of them? And what brings you to Athos?”

“I’m from Moscow. I live in Nicolette’s house during my vacation.”

“I see, vacation! If you need any help, you are welcome!” the old woman said with a mysterious wink and disappeared.

***

“Alice! Well, tell us about Spyridon!” Leah called out to me.

“I gave him slippers, found his ring, but a strange thing happened, he looked at me … looked. With his eyes. I didn’t find it strange yesterday. Now I wonder… the relics don’t have eyes, do they?”

“Let’s see on the Internet what he looks like! By the way, when Gogol was on Corfu during the procession, Spyridon rose in the shrine and looked at him menacingly.”

“Wow!” I said stunned as I looked at the photos. “Until now, on the inner screen, there’s a stream of light from his eye sockets! I left the icon of Spyridon at the pillow for the night. In the morning, oil flowed into my eyes from my forehead and smelled church-like, although yesterday there had been no anointing.”

“A great sign! A monk, icon painter from Mount Athos, came to us and said that the icon that you had taken away would ooze myrrh one day. He brought us the Evangelists, each of them apart.”

We walked along the walls and stopped at the Apostle John the Theologian.

“It’s a pity that the island of Patmos is far from here, 70 kilometers from Turkey,” Leah sighed. “There is no vegetation there, in Greek ‘Patmos’ means rock. At the top of the island, there is the monastery of John the Evangelist, but the cave where the prophecy about the Apocalypse was given is outside the monastery. They dictated for two days, then another ten, John voiced, and his assistant wrote it down. On the icon, the Saint’s finger is applied to his lips as a sign of silence, a seal, the angel asked to keep silent about many things. Usually, John is depicted with an eagle – a symbol of flight of thought and penetration into the Other World. Together with his brother James, he became friends with Peter and the beloved disciple of Christ. Only Peter, James and John saw Jesus praying for the Chalice during the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.”

“In Mark’s Gospel, Christ referred to him as the Son of Thunder.”

“One day, he and his brother asked for fire to descend from Heaven on a Samaritan settlement. In the Cave of Revelation, John first heard thunder. By the way, John was very afraid of sailing in the sea, but he was always rescued during storms. At the request of Christ, he took care of the Virgin Mary, and they sailed to Athos together. John was present at the Assumption of the Virgin with the flower from Paradise, received from Her the day before, then went to preach in Ephesus, and was sentenced to death in Rome, but neither the cup of poison nor the boiling oil in the cauldron had any effect. So, John was exiled to Patmos, where he cast out demons and healed pagans, converting them to Christianity. He died in Ephesus at an advanced age, having returned from exile. Shortly before his death, he wrote the last, the fourth Gospel, filling in the gaps left by the first three Evangelists.”

“It is interesting, Leah, that John is the only one of the Evangelists who died a natural death. He asked to dig him a grave, lay down in it, and when they began to fill it with earth, he was already dead. Later, only sandals were found in the grave. Perhaps, like Spyridon, he helps us, still wandering the world in his body.”

“Yes, not Luke, hanged on a tree in Thebes. Luke was an artist. He was the first to paint the Virgin Mary after Her blessing and during Her lifetime. Since then, he has been considered the patron of artists. All his icons are double-sided. It’s also possible to define whether one artist painted the icons or different ones by faces of Saints. I love the miraculous icon by Luke in the village of Nea Roda. Have you seen the Virgin ‘Skoupiotissa’? The icon miraculously survived in Turkey and miraculously didn’t end up in the Athos monasteries. Luke was a friend of the Apostle Paul, and painted Paul with Peter. Luke is depicted on icons with a calf. The main theme of Luke’s Gospel is the sacrifice of Christ for the sake of mankind, and the calf is a sacrificial animal.”

“Does Matthew the Evangelist, as a former tax collector, patronize tax services and accountants?”

“Yes, we say so too. He is portrayed as a man to whom an angel is dictating the Gospel. Little is known about his life, several countries claim to have his relics, but it is believed that the relics of Matthew are kept in Salerno, Italy. In Italy, in Padua, there are the relics of Luke. The relics of Mark, the winged lion, the patron saint of Venice, are in Venice.”

“I have been to Venice many times,” memories instantly flooded over me in a wave, and I was mentally transported to Piazza San Marco, but Leah brought me back to Athos.

“John the Theologian is closer to me. He set foot on the land of Athos. You know, I remember from Luke’s Gospel, once they met a stranger who cast out devils on behalf of Christ. The Apostles forbade him to do that, while John doubted whether it was right to forbid. Jesus said to John, ‘Don’t forbid, for whoever is not against you is for you’.”

“It’s an interesting phrase,” I agreed and, having looked out the window, saw the same Monk watching the icons in Janis’ shop, and I got scared.

Nea Roda

One couldn’t reach to Nea Roda on foot, but it costed only 1.80 euro to get there by bus from Ouranoupoli. A village near Ouranoupoli, Nea Roda was located just beyond the port of Trypiti, the previous border with Athos, at the narrowest point of the peninsula, where, if desired, one could swim in the sea on both sides.

On the way, the luxurious Eagle’s Palace, where the sheiks used to rest, appeared on the left. A little later, on the right, the five-star Alexandros Palace showed up. I had been in vacation with my son there, and we walked to Nea Roda across the fields along the rural path. I didn’t know then that a unique miraculous icon was kept in the village.

Once I lived on Athos in winter, a period of timelessness – it rained, the shops were closed, all cafes disappeared, as if they hadn’t existed there at all, there were no people on the streets, just cats occasionally. Ouranoupoli was a village of cats and Nea Roda – of dogs. Ouranoupoli used to wake up on Epiphany, celebrated at time of Christmas on Mount Athos. The village went on a religious procession to the pier, from which, after the priest’s prayer, the cross was thrown into the sea, boys dived after it, who was the fastest? Then the priest visited each house and sprinkled it with holy water.

At that time of Christmas and Epiphany, I asked Dimitra to take me to Nea Roda to see the miraculous icon. We arrived at closed doors. Dimitra was looking for the priest by phone, I turned to the Virgin Mary, mentally imagining Her icon, and instantly received an answer to my request, which came in the form of a text phone message from the right person, while Dimitra said that the priest had left and would appear in Nea Roda only the next day. Of course, I came again. The priest opened the church for me, and we spoke a little in English. Before returning to Moscow, I asked Dimitra to give my little gift to the Virgin Mary’s icon, a gold ring with sapphire and diamonds, which I had been wearing for a long time without taking it off. The priest hung it on the chain attached to the icon.

I came there again that day. The church fence was closed. I went to the corner chapel, where one could light a candle and pray at any time of the day. Then I decided to walk along the shore street with cafes, since there were no shops in Nea Roda. I sat down on the shore and watched the horseshoe-shaped peninsula wrapping the sea around. The Sun was no longer hot, preparing to leave for the night chambers. Seagulls were fishing. Children were having fun on the beach. Suddenly, someone sat down next to me.

“Ray? You?” I exclaimed.

“The border ran along Trypiti, so I’m allowed here. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“What date is it today? Do you know?”

“Ray, am I sleeping?”

“You don’t sleep at all, or… all you do is sleeping.”

“Where am I now?”

“On the Stairs. Do you remember, Archimandrite Ignatius personally gave you a book about the Stairs as a gift from Athos? And the hand-painted icon. You were the first to order it.”

“Ah! Right! I ordered the Stairs. Was the icon painted then? Anyhow, now I’m in Nea Roda, I’ve come to…”

“Of course, that’s right. Ask to get your memory back to let you finish something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Once you asked to erase your memory, since you were afraid of the pain that could make you exit life. The request was granted, but your life turned into Hell, and …”

“It’s nonsense!”

“Remember, Alice, or you’ll never get out of the trap. Once you helped me, and I’ll definitely come to the Court to pay my respects, but …”

“What court?”

“When one’s soul leaves the earthly body, all who knew the person alive receive a telegram. If desired, everyone can come to the Court to witness the good and evil deeds of the deceased. Of course, the Guardian Angel recorded everything, nothing can be hidden, but if some soul willingly decides to support you in the Court, this counts as an extra plus.”

“Are you saying that I…”

“Exactly, and the Judgment is already underway! You merge so strongly with your Past that it seems happening here and now. Waking up, you notice strange things, something that is not the same as it was then. Try to step aside! Imagine that you are watching a movie about yourself. You are not inside the screen, you are in front of it, and the true reality will show up in all its glory. The character of the movie doesn’t see the one who is watching the movie from the outside.”

“Does anyone come to say about me?”

“Yes, but they haven’t arrived at the main point yet. It’s highly advisable to finish before the 40th day something that you have not. I just want to help you.”

“Just? You’ve never done anything for nothing!”

“If you arrive in Heaven, you’ll pray for me, and I’ll feel better. Go to the church, Alice. God loves you.”

I returned to the still closed fence, but an old man came out of the church. Having noticed me, he opened the door and gestured for me to come in. I slipped inside, there was no one and no lights were on. The miraculous icon had been moved closer to the altar and installed on the left. I came to “Skoupiotissa” and noticed my ring hanging on a chain among other offerings. I didn’t remember how long I stayed there. As if awoken, I listed the names of my acquaintances in the memorial note, dropped the coins into the donation bowl, and headed to the bus stop to return to Ouranoupoli in time for a family dinner with Dimitra at “Kokkinos”. Each my visit, she invited me to one of the local restaurants.

Ouranoupoli

“Kokkinos” was a year-round restaurant on the main street of Ouranoupoli near the icon shop of the same name, where the Greek woman Effi sold the cheapest hand-painted icons.

“Where do you usually have dinner?” Dimitra asked.

“At ‘Eucalyptus’.”

“I know the owner, he’s a good man!”

Dimitra divided all people into exactly three categories: good, bad and toxic.

“What do you prefer there?” asked Roula, Dimitra’s cousin, joined us instead of Dimitra’s daughter Sofia, who had to work late at “Sketes”.

“One evening I eat seafood salad, the other – chicken, and no dinner every third day.”

“Alice feeds on the Holy Spirit, like monks,” Dimitra’s husband smiled.

“Is that why some monks are as full as barrels of wine?” Dimitra laughed.

The waiter brought the menu. Dimitra, as usual, ordered different seafood dishes so that everyone could try everything. Roula looked at me mysteriously and asked,

“Do you believe in miracles? Dimitra says you are a writer. Perhaps my story will be interesting for you.”

“Writing is a hobby for the soul. I believe in miracles, of course! All life is full of miracles!”

“Great! So … 30 kilometers from Thessaloniki, in a field where there is not a tree in sight, there is a chapel called ‘The Wandering Virgin Mary’, built by the gypsies at the request of the Virgin Mary, appeared to them at that place. The chapel is open 24 hours a day, there are no priests in it, but there is a small miraculous icon inside and a bell at the entrance, so everyone can call Heavens. Traditionally, women’s clothes, shoes, candles and lamp oil are brought to the chapel for the Virgin Mary. Sometimes, passing by, my husband and I also stop there to visit the chapel. When I was pregnant with my son, who is now thirty years old, I asked the Virgin Mary for a successful birth, and after the birth of my son, we gifted a dress and shoes to Her. Once, when my son was about four years old, we went to visit the Wandering Virgin Mary, and my son started ringing the bell. We asked him to stop, but he was very naughty. Suddenly, a beautiful but no longer young woman appeared at the door of the chapel. She smiled, and the son immediately sat down on the bench. The woman sat down nearby and said that she loved that chapel, sometimes she took clothes there and prayed for those who had brought the clothes. We said goodbye to the woman and returned to the car. Suddenly, my husband got concerned and said, ‘Why do we leave her in such an endless field? We should give her a ride! We haven’t even asked where she lives!’ I told my husband to go back to the chapel and take the woman with us. But… she wasn’t there. She disappeared! That field is so wide that it’s impossible to go away unnoticed! And during the time we had walked to the car, she couldn’t have gone far enough to…”

“The Virgin Mary?” I exclaimed.

“Better tell us, Alice, how was your trip to Nea Roda!” Dimitra was clearly eager to turn the conversation into the patriotic field.

“I remember it small, a few streets long. Now it’s a town!”

“Exactly! The government pumps so much money into it that nothing is left for our Ouranoupoli! They dream of turning it into a major resort. Even an animation theater, like in Turkey, is being built!” Dimitra was very passionate about Ouranoupoli. “We are on the border with Athos, we’ll survive on our own. Have you paid attention if their streets are probably licked out there, and there is no rubbish along the roads? I called Nicolette’s husband, who is our mayor-like, and asked him to send street cleaners, because the Assumption is coming! And he was told in Ierissos that there were no workers! There is no one to clean the streets here, while they shout, ‘There is no work in Greece!’ Here it is! A lot of work! Yes, one can’t earn as much money for cleaning the streets as at the Gold-Mines. And the other day, not far from Skouries, they found a mutant fish!”

“Not a mutant, just a poisonous fish,” said Dimitra’s husband.

“This fish was forbidden to be caught and eaten! The sea is like blood! One toxic substance fell at the legs, and in an instant it turned out to be in the head! Go to the cemetery in Ierissos, it’s the closest to the mines, and the dates will tell you everything! We have never got such rate of oncology!” when it came to gold miners, Dimitra was unstoppable. “People who participated in protest rallies were imprisoned and dispersed with gas! The new government promised to close the mines, and after the elections they fell silent! The works are going on, and next summer… Imagine, all three peninsulas are poisoned! The bees are poisoned! And olives! No olive oil, no water! At the first earthquake, here it is, the Apocalypse! We trust you what we don’t tell outsiders, Alice. You know what is happening now on Athos, and the amount that monastery sold its territory in Skouries to these murderers! They weren’t embarrassed that Athos would perish! Money rules the world, not God, God forgive me!”

“God sees everything,” I sighed. “You live in the bosom of the Holy Mountain, the Garden of the Virgin Mary. Do you believe in miracles? I’m sure that at least twelve hermits on Mount Athos keep tirelessly praying for the whole world, and the Virgin Mary, wandering around her Garden, appears at the call of the ringing bell even in an ordinary field! Anyway, even if the Gold-Mines win, when we have nothing left except our memory, we’ll return to those days and fragments where and when we felt good. I’ll definitely come back here, in Ouranoupoli, on Athos.”

33 Before/8 After. House No. 4 (IC)

Piano

Somewhere in the Universe

“What does this Sphere mean?” I asked the Guardian at the door to House No. 4.

“Beginning and ending – roots, traditions, ancestors, family, earthly Motherland, real estate, circumstances of leaving the Earth.”

“Will I finally see my parents and be able to talk with them?”

“Not here, Rukh. So… House No. 4 begins in the Sign of Virgo. Family is very important to you, you’ll care for your loved ones and love your home. A symbol of the workhorse on which everyone plows. It’s work until the last breath.”

“What does the degree in which this Sphere begins mean?”

“Analytical mindset, mania for planning and structuring, increased efficiency, concentration, the sense of justice and severity in judgments. One more indication of deprivation in childhood, the lack of stability and solid ground underfoot, children feel abandoned and have the psychology of a homeless creature. You’re inclined towards cognition of the Subtle World. Don’t get hung up on trifles and don’t accumulate material wealth in reserve, try to get rid of the earthly as much as possible. Take out the keys from your Treasure Island.”

A bunch of keys appeared in my hand. I opened the door, stepped inside and found myself … in a room with a fabulous Christmas tree glittering by the window and an aristocratic-looking ghost sitting in an armchair. He came up to me and said with a sad smile,

“Hello, my little princess!”

“Hello!” I was extremely surprised.

“Your great-grandfather,” said the Guardian. “A well-known personality of his time, written about even outside your country, Rukh. Representative of the ancient Glinsky family.”

“Glinsky?” I asked.

“Elena Glinskaya was the mother of Tsar Ivan the Terrible,” the Ghost sighed. “For a certain period she even ruled Russia. She was accused of witchcraft and poisoned, but it’s not the point now. I came here to cheer you up, because we won’t meet on Earth. My incarnation took place in 1883, I returned to Heaven in 1945, two years after the birth of my grandson, your father. Once we had several mansions in Moscow, practically next to the Kremlin, in Gazetny Lane, in Kolobovsky Lane and so on. It’s quite possible that you’ll even visit one on Herzen Street. After the revolution, I lived here, in this flat on Tverskaya Street, where you’ll spend your first four years on Earth … One day and quite unexpectedly, you’ll receive the Nobility Certificate. Consider it my little gift. Unfortunately, even the jewels that survived the revolution were exchanged for food during the war. However, your chest of relics will keep my old emerald-colored glass, several photographs and a pre-revolutionary book with fabulous illustrations, signed and gifted to me by a famous artist.”

“Your great-grandfather was known all over Moscow, they greeted him on the street, taking off their hats,” the Guardian whispered.

“Don’t talk about me,” the Ghost said modestly.

“One day,” the Guardian continued enigmatically, “you’ll take out an old photo album, and one picture will fall out of it, on the reverse side…”

“Oh yes!” exclaimed the Ghost. “There will be a letter, Rukh. I wrote it to a woman with your earthly name, I didn’t send it. I suppose it was for you, so that you don’t despair. We are always there, even invisible. Besides, you can be proud of us – we did no harm to people and bore hardships with patience.”

All of a sudden everything disappeared. Rather, the scenery in the room changed. I found myself in a tiny kitchen of a wooden house. It smelled of fried mushrooms, bundles of dried herbs hung on ropes along the walls, and a kerosene lamp was lit up on the table. It was raining outside the window. The ghost of the hanged man appeared in front of me.

“Hello, Rukh! I’m really sorry! I wanted you to live here forever!” he said and just as suddenly disappeared.

I looked at the Guardian in surprise, but before I had time to ask him, the house… caught fire and instantly turned to ash.

The scenery changed again. Now it was a room with pen-written wallpaper, a small bed, a huge antique mirror and… a piano. In the flickering of burning candles, the room was filled with the sounds of the Moonlight Sonata, and ghosts appeared out of the mirror. They drew me into their whirlwind dance, and I heard their voices, all, at the same time, from all directions.

“Pray for us! She killed us! Tell our children we love them!”

“I didn’t mean to kill them! Everything was for him! He left me alone! They took me to Hell! I feel bad! So bad! Pray for me!”

“Forgive me! I knew everything, but I was afraid of changes!”

“You feel and know everything! I abandoned my son, and God abandoned me!”

“You’re right, Rukh! There are too many ghosts here, it’s dangerous! Go out of here! Run away!”

“I shouldn’t have done that! Don’t feel angry with me!”

“Sorry, Rukh! God punished us depriving of children!”

I clutched my eyes in horror! Who were all these ghosts?! Suddenly the music stopped. I opened my eyes, but now I saw rapidly changing pictures of different flats. They appeared and immediately disappeared. Simultaneously, one by one, the keys on the bunch melted. How many were there? Five? Ten? Twenty? I heard other people’s caustic voices in every room.

“She’s crazy! I don’t want her to live with us!”

“Fool! She sees ghosts everywhere!”

“Nothing can be done with such wretched children!”

“A witch’s granddaughter! Everything she dreams about comes true! Yesterday she predicted today’s death of that woman! What is she here for?”

“She writes poems and letters to Heaven! This miserable child is not of this world! Sooner or later she’ll kill herself, like Tsvetaeva or Mayakovsky! Let Heaven take care of her!”

“The right place for the church choir singer is the monastery!”

“She has nothing to do here! She doesn’t eat watermelon with forks!”

“Did I promise you any flat? Who the hell are you?!”

It seemed like I was going mad. All of a sudden everything became quiet. I saw a small room full of icons, with the Royal Family one in the center. It was the place where I had been in my hypothetical Future!

“Hey, Rukh, don’t be afraid,” I heard and turned around. A woman in a white sparkling dress stood in front of me. “I am Juno, Hera in Greek mythology, the goddess of marriage and family, daughter of Saturn and wife of Jupiter, mother of Mars and Vulcan, sister of Pluto, Neptune, Ceres and Vesta. Once, the month of June was named after me, they celebrated the women’s holiday Matronalia on March 01, and now the International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 08.”

“So, are you my mom?”

“No, I’m the symbol of wife, I show you as a wife, what you are like in your family, with whom you feel good. On the threshold of the Family House, I signify a soul inclined towards family. The family for you is the main foundation, solid ground under your feet, a reliable rear. Your husband is like a stone wall, your support, protector, breadwinner, he keeps the family in its patriarchal model. You are a guided person, Rukh, caring and gentle. You’ll make your home cozy and hospitable, and the relationship harmonious.”

“Your Juno is friendly with 3 planets – 3 types of men for marriage,” the Guardian specified.

“Sextile, or a happy accident or chance, with Uranus in Scorpio in the Sphere of Love and Creativity means a bright or even brilliant personality, perhaps of a different nationality or faith, relationships are non-standard, fireworks of emotions that are remembered for lifetime. It’s connected with Sphere No. 9 – spiritual path and practices, philosophy, religion, temples, teachers, universities, publishing houses, everything foreign and alien, overseas.

Sextile with Mars in Cancer from Backstage means a mysterious person, possibly a military man of secret services or an employee of secluded companies, a mystic, an introvert, an ascetic soul, perhaps an immigrant or living on an island. There’s a competitive spirit in the relationships. He is your soul mate, you’ll meet in a club of interest, through the Internet, the media and / or in a closed, isolated place.

However, it’s better to find Jupiter in Taurus, we are in a trine, at a distance of 120 degrees, an ideal couple! Trine means the lightning-fast development of events and the solution of all problems by removing obstacles. Jupiter will make you happy. A like-minded patron or boss, related to your work and vocation. Status and intelligent person, interested in spirituality and art, loves beautiful things, he has a great relationship with your Venus. He’ll help you fulfill your mission.”

“Juno is situated in the happy degree of the mountain eagle,” the Guardian smiled. “A symbol of scientists, writers, philosophers and military people. The degree of genius, penetration into the mysteries of the Universe, fatalism and the stellar hour of Fortune, which is sure to strike.”

“Have you finally remembered me?” came the voice of a woman suddenly appearing in the room. “To whom will I bring good luck?”

“Good luck?!” I chuckled. “There are only ghosts here! Better tell me, who are all these people who hate me so much chasing me away?”

“Here is your Pars of Fortune, the point calculated mathematically shows the Sphere where you are lucky,” the Guardian hugged me with his wings. “Success in the knowledge of the Mysterious World, in professions related to the Past, for example, archeology or mythology, with agriculture, or in the political arena. In the Sign of Virgo, it gives success in intellectual activity, literature, philology, philosophy and religion, applied arts and artistic crafts, administrative and performing activities, in Secret Knowledge and politics. Politics and Secret Knowledge are repeated twice, mind you.”

“I strengthen the connection with the ancestors and the craving for your home. I give an inheritance and leave a legacy. Under the condition of hard work and humility, you’ll gain glory in your earthly Motherland, perhaps posthumously,” Fortune stated. “A similar situation was with the King of England Charles I, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand, the Indian politician Mahatma Gandhi, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the American president John F. Kennedy, as well as the poet Walt Whitman and the astrologer Walter Koch.”

“Were they famous people?” I asked to clarify.

“One can become famous for bad deeds! The degree of my location,” continued Fortune, “means conservatism and attachment to traditions, hard trials and the role of a scapegoat, as a result, a thirst for solitude. Your support is the tree of your aristocratic family. If you don’t give up and don’t get angry at the world, you’ll become a versatile and very modest person with a pronounced transformation of Consciousness due to the events survived.”

“Fortune is friends with Selene and Sirius,” the Guardian added. “Chances and happy accidents are given to you by Heaven. Excellent relationship with the Sun means rapid social rise, celebrity and fame in society; with Mercury gives success in the Sphere of the Word, for example, in writing. Good relationship with Pluto makes you influence the masses.”

“I am not a friend of Saturn,” Fortune remarked, “you get obstacles and delays with inheritance and real estate. Perhaps they are constantly taken away at the last moment. However, your departure from Earth will be lightning quick!”

I looked at the key bunch and found that there was only one key left on it. To that room?

“What is that chest in the closet?” I asked, noticing the glow emanating from it.

“The treasures you inherited,” Fortune smiled. “Look inside!”

I found there an album with black and white photos, my great-grandfather’s glass, a pre-revolutionary book of fairy tales illustrated by a famous artist, garnet beads, a curl of black hair, a hand-embroidered handkerchief, epaulets with stars, a newspaper clipping, a patent for some invention, several letters and a fountain pen.

“Small spool but precious! The smallest gold coin is the richest!” the Guardian whispered, stroking me with his wing. “Look around! Why don’t you notice, my soul, how many friends you have?!”

“Friends? Is there anyone here but us?” I was surprised and looked around the room.

Suddenly, the faces on the icons came alive and whispered, radiating powerful streams of Light. I approached them, and each Saint blessed me for life. They looked at me with Universal Love and filled my soul with it.

Library of the Universe

“Is the next House as well nice?” I chuckled bitterly.

“No, there are different leeches,” the Guardian smiled.

“Leeches are what or who?”

“More likely who,” the Guardian replied evasively.

“Isn’t the already shown enough to stop wanting to live?”

“No, Rukh. If the soul isn’t recalled back, it hasn’t done everything yet. You may not understand why you are kept in an earthly body. Most likely, you won’t even pay attention when you complete some of your real tasks.”

“Can I refuse incarnation?”

“What on earth are you thinking! Would human life exist if souls could refuse to descend into the world full of pain and suffering? Everyone would refuse! To live in Heaven is not to serve on Earth!”

“My great-grandfather, what did he do on Earth according to Heavenly plan?”

“He dedicated his life to music. He played the flute at the Bolshoi Theatre, was a virtuoso, toured extensively, gave solo concerts, taught at musical colleges, including the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, published several flute books that are still used by teachers. He was personally acquainted with the Italian musician and flutist Leonardo de Lorenzo, was a friend of the famous Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, and of many representatives of the artistic elite of his time. Separate works and entire symphony concerts were dedicated to him. They wrote about him in different countries. You’ll be given his perfect ear and sense of rhythm, graduate from music school with a piano degree and invited to the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music where he once taught. You’ll be faced with a choice – follow in his footsteps or not.”

The book opened at the page with “The Piano” story. A ghost girl tried to put her best friend, the piano, in good hands, but it couldn’t bear the separation from the mistress.

“Her transparent fingers ran over the keys, and the room was filled with magical sounds. The waves of vibrations, exciting and taking the soul to its Great Primary Source, seemed to have moved Grigory into some Other Reality, and when the silence reigned back, he was in a state of stupor for a long time. What had that music been? Who had played it?”

Awakening

Ouranoupoli

“Oh! I was waiting for you! Let’s go for a walk!” Dimitra exclaimed as she met me returning from the Akathist reading, and her intonation foreshadowed a storm.

A walk for the locals meant to walk three houses up from the Tower towards the border with Athos and come back slowly. In case of a long walk, in addition, to go down from the Tower to the pier and return to the Tower. If the walk was global, plus five houses along the sea street and back to the Tower. When Kiri’s father was insisting on giving me a ride in his car from the sea street to the central one, with a house between, I refused, but I couldn’t refuse Socrates’ offer to ride with a breeze from the sea street to the street following the central one, since the distance had been already doubled.

Dimitra was born in a house with their icon shop opposite the Tower. Her parents still lived there. Dimitra’s own house as cottage next to Nicolette’s house was 5–7 minutes walking from the Tower. For local residents, such distance was subject to travel by bus, car or motorbike, and walking from the Tower to the border with Athos, where I read the Akathist, was almost a feat.

Dimitra resolutely headed upward.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Let’s go and look for Vasilios! You have no idea! Evil is not enough for these relatives! I don’t know about Russia, but we celebrate a great holiday on the 1st of May in Greece. We all get together at my place in the fresh air around one big table. We all – me and …” Dimitra went on with her list of cousins, brothers and sisters, she had twenty of them, as well as more distant relatives.

“Yes, we also celebrate the 1st of May,” I said.

“So here it is! Vasilios is my best friend! A decent, honest, good man! He believes in God! Do you understand? Believes, not just baptized! Imagine! No, it’s unbearable! Vasilios has a family! Wife and two kids! They have nothing to eat!”

“So what’s happened?”

“Angel!” exclaimed Dimitra, and I involuntarily shuddered, and she continued, “He started chasing him!”

“I don’t understand,” I said honestly.

“Angel is husband of the cousin of the husband of my husband’s third cousin’s niece! Yes, we all grew up here under my mother’s roof! And he keeps sniffing everything! Oh, can you imagine? Angel ate and drank with Vasilios, and now runs to the police!”

“Why the police?” I couldn’t get it yet.

“Vasilios comes to the village to sell olives! He grows and cooks them himself! Well, he has no other way to feed his family! He lives in the mountains, there is no work but large olive gardens there. We all have olives. Sometimes I pick more than 3,000 kg from one-two-three and not more trees. Who else, but tourists, might need Vasilios’ olives? And Angel is stalking him, running around like a bloodhound, knocking on the police to drive him out of the village! Vasilios has nothing to eat! Olives in stores cost three times more than he sells. Vasilios has the most organic product! We need to find him urgently and warn him!”

“Listen, why does Angel do this?”

“Here you are! That’s what I’m talking about! He’s got crazy! Imagine what I feel! Because of kinship, I have to say hello every day!”

We passed three houses, and then, not finding Vasilios, turned back to the Tower for a long walk, to the pier.

“And some ones,” Dimitra continued, “claimed our house by the Tower! My grandmother lived in a box in the courtyard of the house near the Tower, where we park the car now. So, many years ago, my grandmother sheltered a family out of pity, they had nowhere to live. When we all grew up, my grandmother said, ‘Sorry, my house is for Dimitra’. In fact, it was a doghouse, not a house! And imagine, they sued my grandmother! They were just passing by! I paid 21,000 euros only to the lawyer, and my grandmother’s house couldn’t stand it and collapsed! There is our car parked there now, because nothing else fits in the space! It was such a small house!”

“All the same is everywhere,” I thought, but didn’t burden Dimitra’s sorrows with my memories and shifted my gaze to the islands, behind which the sky was flashing with lightning.

“Well, Vasilios isn’t here either, let’s look further! There’s also a monster in the village! I have one life and one icon shop. One and a small one, mind you. I wash it every day, clean and clean it, polish it to a shine. And he… it’s unbelievable! He sees nothing but money! The rent here is at least 45,000 euro! Well, where are you going? Think of God! No, there are numbers with zeros in his eyes! Socrates is another matter! He has a hotel on the main street, a restaurant, and a shop. A billionaire, but a good man! We both say, ‘they don’t make money on icons!’ Vasilios is not here either! Where the hell is he? I’ve called him, no answer! Okay, let’s go back.”

“Does he have an icon of St. Basil? I visited a cave monastery in Montenegro with the relics of St. Basil of Ostrog. He lived at the beginning of the 17th century, visited Mount Athos, became a bishop at the age of 28 in a Serbian monastery. A kind Saint, helps everyone. In that monastery, in addition to his relics, there is a healing spring, and a magical grape grows out of the mountain, and pilgrims leave their wish notes in crevices.”

We returned to the shop. I happily flopped down into the chair. Dimitra offered coffee, but it was too stuffy, the electronic scoreboard outside the pharmacy showed us +32C at 10:30 pm.

“Family icons?” Dimitra suggested a topic for another conversation. “Well, ‘The Holy Family’ with Mary, Joseph and Christ. Their hands are merged together. For a strong family. What else, if they asked me more, I’d say to buy any image of the Virgin Mary. And you?”

“Saints Peter and Fevronia of Murom. I have their Russian icon – Peter hugs Fevronia, they hold a dove in their palms, while the dove also has a halo. ‘The Tree of Christ’ and ‘The Tree of the Virgin Mary’ are good to pass on as inheritance in order to preserve the genealogical tree. For me, the icon of the Royal Family, Tsarina Alexandra, is important. Her name was Alice before she changed her religion for Orthodox. The Athos icon ‘The Elder’, or ‘Gerontissa’, helps old people.”

“Yes, she warns the monks on Athos about their transition to the Other World and fills the cellars with food, almost like the ‘House-Builder’, although ‘The Elder’ is depicted not sitting on the throne, but in full growth, in slippers on a ceramic floor with a jug from which oil flows.”

“Icons of Saints whose names are or were present in the family. Anna, Mary and Christ as grandmother, mother and son.”

“What about ‘The Fourth Generation’? You were the first to take it from me, and then a Londoner! Such a mysterious icon! You even asked me to call the twin monks on Athos for comments, but they refused to comment on it.”

“Yes, this icon as well. A non-canonical icon. In Italy it is called ‘Motherhood’, translated from Greek as ‘The Fourth Generation’. Three women – the Virgin Mary, her mother and grandmother – and the baby Christ. All very different in height and size, like a matryoshka, nesting doll. When I was in India, we were brought to a mountain gorge, where figures of giants of various sizes were carved into the rocks. We looked like ants against the background of even the smallest figures there. ‘The Fourth Generation’ reminds me of the legend about the 4 races of humanity, starting with the Elohim and ending with us.”

“All sorts of places you’ve been to, Alice! We plan to go to Morocco. I like to travel too!”

Suddenly… no, it was surreal! A man, a secular man, not a monk, floated past us to the Tower … in a black business suit and a white shirt with a tie … in a long unbuttoned black coat! He was holding a black umbrella-cane and a black leather briefcase. He wore a black felt hat on his head! The electronic scoreboard was still showing +32C!

“Dimitra,” I whispered, afraid to frighten the stranger off, but she jumped up from her chair, as if scalded.

“Vasilios!” Dimitra ran after the passing car, the back of which was an open area loaded with olives.

Oh curiosity! I pulled myself away from the chair and swam after the mysterious stranger, giving Dimitra the opportunity to chat with her friend. In the meantime, the stranger walked to the pier and, looking at the cloudless sky, opened his umbrella (!) as wide as I opened my eyes, and froze at the Tower, periodically glancing at his wristwatch, like people waiting for a bus. But the bus stop wasn’t there! Besides, at that hour there were no buses in Ouranoupoli! And what about an open umbrella and completely inappropriate attire for +32C? Why didn’t anyone pay attention to him?!

My phone rang.

“Ray! Save me! The man… in black… he…”

“He drops out of context, right?”

“Yes, he’s not here, or not from here!”

“Come up to him, it’s time to wake up!”

As I walked the man closer and closer, the space changed right in front of my eyes! The Mist enveloped the Tower, and it turned into a city house at a bus stop! Yes, it was raining and cold there! To my right, I noticed the typical red call-box of London!

“No!” I screamed in horror, closed my eyes and opened them on Athos, in Ouranoupoli. The Tower was still there. The man disappeared.

I returned to Nicolette’s house in a flash to catch my breath. Having grabbed the key, I went up to my top floor. I habitually opened the door and inserted the key into the automatic switch of electricity. The light turned on.

“What’s that? Where are my stuff? Who took all away? Where are the icons I has left on the second half of the bed? Where is my laptop?”

And the wardrobe! It was empty and had no trace of anyone’s presence! I rushed to the bathroom, then to the balcony. Oh no! I flew down the stairs and rang frantically at Nicolette’s doorbell. She appeared sleepy and looked around, understanding nothing.

“Where is my stuff?” I exclaimed.

Nicolette silently looked at me with a sleepy look and slammed the door. I decided to return to Dimitra. In a flash, I covered the distance to her shop and saw that it was … closed. I looked at the electronic scoreboard, it was +23C at 0:00.

I rushed to Dimitra’s house. She might not be sleeping yet. However, there was no light in. I flew inside – no one, as if the owners had left somewhere …

“Dimitra!” I screamed from impotence into the void and collapsed in despair on the porch in front of her house.

“What’s happened, darling?” suddenly came the voice of the old lady from Austria, who lived in the white-and-blue house opposite.

“You are a ghost!” I realized suddenly. “I need to see Joice!”

Tower of Ouranoupoli

“You are back, thank God!” Joice greeted me on the balcony, smiling, and I threw myself into her arms. “Well, calm down, darling! Let’s drink tea by the fireplace and recite poetry!”

Joice lit the fireplace with her eyes, visualized two cups and a teapot, invited me to sit in the chair opposite and asked,

“What kind of tea do you prefer?”

“What kind do you have?”

“Any,” Joice laughed. “Come up with your own recipe, which has never existed before, and it will instantly appear in the teapot!”

“Jasmine,” I whispered. “Everything is so unusual!”

“It’s unusual for everyone at first,” Joice encouraged me, pouring tea into ghostly cups. “How long ago did you leave for our World?”

“I don’t remember,” I sighed. “Ray said I had asked Heaven to erase my memory. Now I’m connecting to selective fragments of the Past, experiencing them as here and now. Everything is in chaos. I can’t restore the chain of events.”

“Ray, who is he?”

“Ghost of a sorcerer. He’s not allowed into Ouranoupoli, only as far as Trypiti. He said… what did he say to me? I can still do something before the 40th day that would help me at Judgement.”

“You remember everything perfectly! How many days have passed?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“How did you leave your earthly body?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You need a plan of actions. First, remember what you haven’t finished and how many days you have until the 40th. Memory is blocked by fear of pain. We the ghosts are usually drawn to Earth, to places where we felt good, or we try to complete something unfinished. Do you remember some prayers?”

“Only the shortest one. Though on Athos, I read the Akathist to the ‘Seeking for the Perished’!”

“Great! That icon helps in hopeless situations. Keep connecting to the Past, sit next to yourself on Athos, look at the text and read!”

“I’m connecting randomly!”

“With the power of thought, Alice. Everything here is done with it. Take the boat in the morning to the Holy Mountain, and then go to Moscow.”

“No! I don’t want to go back there!” I exclaimed.

“But, most likely, you didn’t finish something there, not on Athos. In the meantime, find out the date of your death to find out how many days are still available. You’re clearly stuck at the border. Ouranoupoli is the boundary zone between Earth and Heaven,” Joice sighed and the stairs creaked. “These are monks, don’t be afraid! Ghosts like us, they pray in the chapel under the roof.”

The phone rang.

“Aren’t you tired of visualizing the phone?” Ray asked.

“How else?” I asked back into the phone, understanding nothing.

“Where are you?”

“At Joice’s. In the afternoon, I’ll probably return home.”

“There’s nothing scary there,” Ray reassured me. “See you.”

The phone disappeared.

“How can you communicate without a phone?” I asked.

“You’ll learn soon,” Joice chuckled. “Shall we recite poetry?”

Looking through the tiny window of the Tower into the night, wrapped in a ghostly plaid visualized by Joice, in the armchair by the fireplace, periodically tasting the jasmine tea to the sounds of the waves crashing against the pier, I listened to her poems and slowly drifted into the slumber of the Mist enveloping my consciousness.

Courtroom in the Universe

There was a huge Cross in the center of a foggy room looking like an official meeting one, with a dim light, the source of which I couldn’t identify. On both sides of its horizontal bar, the bowls of Scales were hanging and swaying, and there was a movie screen above the Scales. There were winged creatures in the hall, I couldn’t see their faces, but I heard the continuous rustling of wings.

“Where is the handle?” an angel asked sternly. “Where did you hide it?”

“A handle… Hmm… What handle? I have no idea!” the devil yawned sweetly and scratched his belly with his tail. “I don’t understand what you mean!”

The angel threatened the devil with a cross, and he instantly slipped aside.

“Oh… put your weapon away! What’s the difference? Anyway, she’s ours!”

The devil poked his tail at me. I closed my eyes in fear. Suddenly, a voice announced a name, and silence reigned. Two creatures with scrolls to the right and left of the Scales prepared to take notes. A young man dressed as a monk approached the Scales, and as soon as he spoke, the movie screen turned on, frames began to be projected on it, and I remembered him! How old was he? He had come to me after my concert at their school and told me about his secret dream to become a monk against his parents’ wishes. We talked long then, but I didn’t remember what about.

He spoke quietly, but several times and quite distinctly I heard my name. Having finished his speech, the man said “thank you”, and a small shining ball of energy in the form of a heart flew into the right bowl. The Scales swung in search of balance.

32 Before/9 After. House No.5

Grape Picker

Somewhere in the Universe

“This is Love,” the Guardian smiled by House No. 5. “The Sphere of your Heart and Creativity. On the earthly level, it means your children, on the Heavenly one – paintings, books and other works of art, creations of the soul thanks to earthly and heavenly love. Information about those you’ll love, about children and the memory that you’ll leave to your descendants.”

“I hope to find my happiness at least here!”

“I didn’t promise you happiness,” the Guardian replied thoughtfully.

“You said some leeches must be in this Sphere! Although I don’t know what they are!”

I pulled the doorknob, closed my eyes, stepped inside and opened my eyes on a cloud! Curly clouds were floating all around us in the light blue sky. Like children, we plopped down on one of them and sailed into the distance.

“Amazing!” I exclaimed. “Can I turn the clouds into air castles while we are sailing?”

“Welcome to the Sphere of Creativity!”

So a castle with 7 towers, each in its own color, appeared as a house for my heart. After it I built a lilac one with 12 towers to have a rest there in solitude. And more, I wanted to create a magical garden with wonderful animals and birds!

“House No. 5 falls into the Sign of Libra, Venus manages it. She is not here, but she gives the sense of harmony and the opportunity to realize creative potential, inclines to participate in collective events, join creative unions. You’ll like cultural events. Excellent artistic abilities will pull you onto the stage. What would you paint, my soul?”

“Our World, ourselves before incarnation. Well, Library of the Universe!”

“If you wish, you’ll become a master in any field of creative expression. With pleasure, you’ll shape the artistic taste of children, instilling in them diverse interests. As for religion, outward attributes are important to you, such as singing, burning candles, the smell of incense, icons and liturgy. The outward doesn’t always match the inward. In striving for judging and peacemaking, don’t forget that only God can judge others.”

“What about love?”

“You are prone to flirting and falling in love, but people who are not interested in arts won’t be interesting to you.”

“I’m already eager to love very much!”

“An open manifestation of tender feelings doesn’t threaten you, but your House No. 5 begins in the degree of loneliness, Saturn and Pluto. It’s a symbol of tragic loss and bereavement. You’ll lose those you’ll truly love, and what your heart will be attached to. This degree is called ‘The burning fireplace in an abandoned house’.”

“No!” I screamed and tears slowly rolled down from my eyes.

Suddenly, the man in black appeared out of the clouds right in front of us. I got up, and we hovered in the air, looking into each other’s eyes. He was radiating magical rays of attraction, and pleasant waves ran through my astral body, while he only briefly introduced himself,

“Pluto.”

His intonation was so enveloping soft and frighteningly mysterious that I was scared to realize that I had already and completely been under his control. Smiling back, I caught the most beautiful castle – with my heart, and handed it to him. Pluto took my gift and right in front of me…

“What’s?!” I exclaimed, clinging to the Guardian and sobbing with resentment. “How could he do that? Why did he destroy my castle?”

Pluto laughed, something diabolical was in his laughter. He handed me a glass filled to the brim.

“Well, sorry, darling! Drink wine for our acquaintance!”

I thought that the ruined castle had been an accident or a joke, and Pluto was good, but the wine turned out to be very bitter.

“What’s this?” I asked the Guardian.

“The Cup of Pain.”

“A slow-acting poison,” Pluto clarified. “It’ll slowly kill you throughout the incarnation. Or rather, it’s me to be killing you slowly but surely.”

“You are evil!” I screamed and covered my face with my hands in helplessness.

“You guessed it! I’m the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, in severe opposition to your life-giver, the Sun. Taking away your energy, not allowing you to shine, not recognizing your personality, I’ll mock your soul in every possible way, but you are drawn to me, aren’t you?” Pluto chuckled.

Suddenly, a woman in a black dress with sparkling stars appeared next to him. She looked like a vampire and took Pluto by the hand, turning to me with a grin.

“Don’t be deceived, Rukh. There’s a stamp in your passport, I’m in conjunction with Pluto for all your earthly life. People call me the Grape Picker. I’m the star of loss, taking away everything that one grows with love. When any fruit of your love or creativity is ripe, I’ll come and pick it! It’ll never be yours! Never! Remember!”

The woman clung to Pluto, and they disappeared in an instant.

Library of the Universe

“A fixed star of the second magnitude, Vindemiatrix,” the Guardian commented. “Leeches are vampire creatures that parasitize on a person, feeding on vital energy, which leads to a slow loss of strength and depression. People will mock, torture you in every possible way, stab in the back, deprive of something or someone. Vindemiatrix creates a double-faced environment, isolates and takes away happiness. The star of widowhood, infertility, sudden deaths. Pluto, the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead, serves to Vindemiatrix, and you have them in conjunction. However, Vindemiatrix has the features of Mercury, who is responsible for the Word and the Mind, and gives a penchant for mysticism and Secret Knowledge, patronizes business and architecture. The star of people with strong spirit and of strong-willed ones. It’s not all that bad.”

“Is it really?! Tell me, what and where is good? We’ve already visited the 5th of the 12 Spheres of life!”

“Your 5th Sphere is gigantic. We’ve just started to get through it. Anyway, it’s good in the desert, there is nothing that could be taken away, and no one to hurt you,” the Guardian glanced at the opened page of my book. “Not a children’s story. Having a tendency to calculate options, try to remember the Grape Picker in time.”

I read the story “Stillborn”, in which the main character killed his mistress in order to get their long-awaited newborn daughter.

“My mother told me the truth! How much did you pay your friend, the doctor, to kill her and declare me ‘dead’? Who was killed and buried then instead of me? You didn’t even show up for the funeral, daddy, while her husband, every year on my birthday, orders a prayer for the repose of my soul in Heaven as for the dead!”

Stairs

Ouranoupoli

I got on the ship. Nobody seemed to notice me. I looked at the world with another vision, for example, I saw the glow of people, different in saturation and shades; pillars of Light over the Athos monasteries, each had its own. The people on the ship were photographing the earthly beauty and impatiently awaiting the arrival of the relics… A boat set sail from the foot of the Holy Mountain, and soon the monks of the Dionysiou Monastery boarded the ship. People lined up to venerate the miraculous icon of the “Virgin Mary of the Akathist”. I stood next to the icon in an empty place so as not to disturb anyone, and prayed mentally. Suddenly, a little girl, kissing the icon, whispered to her mother, pointing at me, “Look, what a strange lady!” The woman didn’t notice my presence and was even afraid for her daughter. I moved to the deck a level higher and found myself right in front of the Mountain. The clouds of white-winged angels parted, exposing its top, and I saw a dazzling Stairway going up!

Moscow

As I stepped out of the lift, I bumped into the ghost of my neighbor’s husband. We greeted each other, and I remembered that I had seen him at the Information Desk in the Heavenly Office.

“I’m waiting for my Lena,” he sighed.

“Do you know when I left here?”

“Nine days ago. What’s the point of your coming back?”

“I need to remember something here.”

“Sometimes it’s better not to remember,” the ghost said sadly.

Out of habit, I tried to get the keys out of my bag, but ended slipping inside with my eyes shut.

“Ugh,” I breathed out as I opened my eyes.

“Hi,” Ray greeted me in the hallway. “Make yourself at home, but don’t forget that you are a guest. Pay attention to the unusual.”

I glanced appraising the room and exhaled – there were only icons. Alive icons, the Saints and the Virgin Mary looked at me, obviously trying to awaken my memory, but I went into the kitchen and sat down on the windowsill thoughtfully.

“Well,” Ray said cryptically, “not bad. And…?”

“And what?” I got worried.

“What happened next?” he asked, coming closer to me.

“Ray, no, I couldn’t!” I jumped off the windowsill onto the tiled floor.

“They decided so,” Ray sat down next to me. “The church doesn’t deal with death like that.”

“Are you saying someone threw me out?”

“Since childhood, you’ve had the tendency to the window. When your memory was erased, life became unbearable as the day of groundhog. You wished death, but patiently waited for it, sitting on the windowsill by the open window.”

“The handle! There is no handle on the right window sash!” I noticed.

“It was already half broken at that moment. It was raining that night, a devil came to you and once again tried to inspire you to step down. The Guardian Angel was there, but suddenly…”

“My God, did I slip? And the handle, as the only thing I could hold on to, came off! They must have found it, there, on the ground, torn off … in my … well… hand … or nearby!”

“The handle might have been missing before. Everyone knew about your inclination, it never occurred to anyone that you had slipped.”

“They know everything in Heaven! There, in the Court of Judgment, I saw a huge screen on which my life is scrolled.”

“Not only actions and words are being judged, thoughts and desires as well.”

“That’s terrible, Ray. What can I do now without my body and voice?”

“Some people hear and see us. Shortly before the memory loss, you wanted to do something, I’m forbidden to tell you what it was, but it was your sincere wish. You need to fulfill it. I don’t know how, and whether it can affect the Court’s verdict. Come back here, dig into things.”

“There’s nothing but icons here!” I was surprised.

“You passed by the second room. The fear of pain clouds your vision so much that you stubbornly don’t notice many things.”

I returned to the corridor and found a door with a lock.

“Courage! What is there to be afraid of now?” Ray pushed me inside, and there was a mountain of things piled on top of each other from floor to ceiling.

“Oh,” I burst out. “How many days will it take me? I can’t get in time, Ray! Where did all the stuff come from? What are these things?”

“Trying is not torture. The torture’s in Hell in a frying pan.”

“Is it very hot in Hell?” I asked with an eye to the future.

“Unbearable. Shall we drink tea?”

Ouranoupoli

“Alice, jump!” Leah exclaimed when she saw me coming back from the Athos’ border. “Let’s see your Stairs!”

“Wow! It’s amazing!”

“I didn’t expect it either,” said Janis, coming up to us. “Both devils and souls are painted in details.”

Janis returned to the customers, Leah brought coffee and asked me,

“Jacob’s Ladder?”

“He has a different one. Jacob is the 3rd Old Testament Patriarch, the son of the Patriarch Isaac and Rebecca, revered in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He fought with the angel and after it was transformed and acquired a new name, Israel. He dreamed about the Ladder connecting Heaven and Earth, of 12 steps, with human faces on both sides and fiery faces at the top. The angel told Jacob the meaning of each step, but Jacob’s Ladder is interpreted as Christ’s descent to Earth – the incarnation of the Spirit into matter by passing 12 steps, I would say, 12 Spheres, the path from Heaven to Earth. It’s also a symbol of the Virgin, as the Akathist says, ‘Rejoice, Heavenly Ladder, by which God came down’. Jacob had 12 sons, the founders of the tribes. He lived 147 years. According to Egyptian customs, his body was embalmed by his children and transported to the Promised Land of Canaan for burial in the Cave in Hebron.”

“Where is it?”

“Hebron, or Kiryat Arba, the City of Four, not far from Jerusalem. The oldest of the 4 holy cities for the Jews, where King David was anointed to the kingdom. It’s divided into 2 parts, 20%, including the Cave of the Patriarchs, belongs to Israel, and 80% belongs to Palestine.”

“Have you been in that Cave? Well, tell me about it!”

“The Cave of the Patriarchs, or Machpela, is translated as ‘Double Cave’. They say whoever descends into it, immediately goes to the Kingdom of the Dead, or Paradise. Remember the icon of Abraham and Sarah, treating the angels. It looks like an icon of the Trinity. So, it was in Hebron that God appeared to Abraham and Sarah in the form of three strangers and told the good news – they would get a son. They had no children for a long time, perhaps because Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister. Abraham wanted to feed the wanderers with a calf, but it ran to the Cave. Abraham caught up with the animal, discovered the tombs of Adam and Eve, from which the Heavenly Light and the wonderful smell of Paradise emanated, and felt that Heaven and Earth were united in the Cave. By the way, ‘Hebron’ comes from the word ‘connection’. After the death of Sarah, Abraham bought a field with the Cave for the burial of his beloved wife. He was buried nearby.”

“Next to Adam and Eve?”

“Where, according to legend, God himself buried Adam, who had previously buried Eve there, and where the entrance to Paradise was located. Abraham lived about 175 years, the first of the 3 Patriarchs after the Flood. The second, the son of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, was buried there with his wife Rebecca. The son of Isaac, Jacob, was the one who saw the Ladder of 12 steps. Both he and his wife Leah …”

“Leah? That’s my name! What does the Cave look like?”

“Visually, the structure above the Cave resembles the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. They say it was built by King Herod 2,000 years ago, the outer walls are about 12 meters high, and the stones in the lower part are about 7.5 meters long. The territory is divided into two parts, in proportion approximately like Hebron itself, there is a mosque and a synagogue. Each has a separate entrance. Since 1967, the entrance to the Cave has been open to tourists 24 hours per day, but you can’t get into the underground part. There are symbolic tombstones inside the mosque and the synagogue.”

“Has no one ever gone down there?” Leah was disappointed.

“The entrance to the lower part was walled up by the Arabs in the 10th century. In the mosque, in the hall of Isaac, there is a small hole in the floor, 28 centimeters in diameter. Every morning it is opened and a burning lamp is lowered into the dungeon. One day a little girl was sent there to explore and measure the lower floor with steps. She saw the graves and a corridor leading to the next room. Several people entered the dungeon in a different way and found not one, but two levels connected by corridors, but the lower level was filled with earth to the top.”

“It’s a pity!” Leah sighed. “Although, the cave-like conditions help keep the bodies incorruptible. Remember the Seven Youths of Ephesus. If people enter inside, they’ll tear apart the bones, try to get them together after that! What Ladder was painted for you?”

“In the 6th century, the hegumen of the Sinai Monastery, the Monk John, originally from Constantinople, but moved to Egypt, where he spent 40 years as a hermit in the desert, wrote the book ‘The Stairs’, or ‘The Paradise Stairs’, ‘The Spiritual Tablets’. There are 30 steps of ascent to God in it, and the book, originally written for monks, is a guide to spiritual self-improvement. Each step means the renunciation of one of the earthly passions and the acquisition of the quality needed for the ascent to the Light. The 23 steps are dedicated to the fight against sins, and the 7 higher ones to the acquisition of virtues, the highest is the union of Faith, Hope and Love.”

“In a Greek book about the Posthumous Ordeals, there are exactly 23 tests. There is an icon ‘The 7 Pillars of Faith’!”

“They calculate 20 Ordeals in Russia. If one goes into detail, it could be even 40. John himself is depicted the closest to God on the Stairs with a scroll of his manuscript “The Stairs”. On the icon, John is without halo, since he hasn’t yet reached Christ, there are 3 steps left. Behind him, in white robes, the abbot Anthony of the same Sinai monastery is ascending. He lived 5 centuries later. They began to paint the icon when the book had already been published. St. Catherine’ monastery in Sinai keeps an icon of the 12th century.”

“Why are devils taking monks with their hooks and loops, while the angels are silently looking at that from Heaven?”

“They are praying, and their prayer has great power, Leah! But neither angels nor devils can press on a person, forcing to make a decision. The devils only whisper bad thoughts, tempt, incline the soul towards Evil. On the right of the icon, the monks, still living on Earth, look at the Stairs, as if trying the way on themselves, will they reach Heavens? Many have seen the Stairs and the Ordeals in dreams.”

“Alice, do you believe in devils, Ordeals?”

“I believe that everyone will get their own, and after death we’ll see life in all its glory, and we’ll be tested for attraction to earthly things. My grandmother, 10 days before her death, said that sorcerers and devils came to her, gnawed at her, dragged her to them torturing in every way. Perhaps the devils are a convention, but …”

“What will be in case of the balance between our Good and Evil?”

“One soul, when the door to Heaven was already opened, refused God and went to the Devil, because that soul liked the Evil. If we are given the right to choose during our lifetime, it’s unlikely to be taken away afterwards.”

“How long is the trial?”

“Some monks saw the Saints instantly overcoming the Stairs. The speed of passage is different for everyone. I think 40 days are set not for nothing.”

“It turns out that there are several Ladders! The Jacob’s one has 12 steps down, the John’s has 30 steps up, right? And we have 40 days. Are there 20 or 23 steps of the Ordeals?”

“Time is a conditional concept, and the Ladder is one only, with uninterrupted movement in both directions – the descent of the soul into the body, its way on Earth, and the return to Heaven.”

Janis returned to us and handed me a book.

“A gift for you from Archimandrite Ignatius! Published by the cell of St. Nicholas for pilgrims, translated into Russian, only for sale on Mount Athos. Let’s see the photos from the monasteries where I was yesterday!”

Tower of Ouranoupoli

“How are you, Alice?” Joice asked.

“Not much,” I sighed, slumping into a chair by the fireplace. “It’s the 10th day after. All I know is that my body was buried without liturgy, and something needs to be done before the 40th day. The only evidence that I slipped on the windowsill is the missing handle, torn from the window frame. I’ll hardly find it, and how can I tell them there? And to whom?”

“Not bad for a start! When you find the handle, you’ll think about what to do with it next. At home?”

“Floor-to-ceiling stuff. It’s unrealistic to examine all things one by one in the rest of my time. Why did they get there? Not to remind me of the Past? I found my book with a funny title, ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’.”

“Some not only believe, but hear and see us,” Joice smiled. “What’s the book?”

“A collection of unrelated stories written a long time ago. I’ve read a few, but they are all veiled. ‘The House by the Station’ was to be demolished, but I smelt the acrid smoke, someone had set fire to our house. The story ‘Stillborn’ is written on behalf of a man. I saw him with his wife, they had no children. Maybe he offered me… to give birth to his child, and then he would have killed me?”

“Focus on feelings, they are more important than words. We the writers often imagine a chain of events that doesn’t come true and becomes a story. At the Posthumous Ordeals, souls are shown something as a test on their earthly connections. If the soul is drawn to the earthly, the door to Heaven won’t open. You were immediately drawn to Athos, to the border of Heaven, a great sign, if not for the blockage of memory. What if you remember something binding you to Earth, or a loved one who is tormented in Hell, and you would like to be with him?”

---

“Ray… No, I remember him. I feel no pain communicating with him, no gaps in memory, although he had his own life, I had mine, it looked like an astral marriage. Ray was a powerful magician, but he used his abilities for selfish purposes. We met periodically, but he always knew everything about me, wherever he was. There was no point in jealousy, no one would ever replace him for me, and me for him. We understood each other silently. He taught me to slow down and stop Time, to move in Spaces, to change scenarios. He tried to teach me search work, but one step before the goal, I turned back, not trusting myself. He told me what he couldn’t share with others, and I told him as well. He accepted the real me, he saw the Sun in me and allowed me to shine, because he wasn’t afraid of being eclipsed. It was an invisible bond of perfectly matched souls that couldn’t be together, since I didn’t want to do black magic, and he didn’t want to give it up. Ray didn’t believe in Hell, Heaven, God, but he helped me when I felt bad, even after he left earthly body, he appeared, sensing that I was drowning, saved me and disappeared.”

“You won’t be able to cross the border until you’re tested for all attachments to the earthly. There’s clearly something in the erased Past!”

“Ray said I should do something, not remember everything.”

“Perhaps it will compensate the imbalance of Scales. If the memory doesn’t return, you’ll still be stuck here. Suppose you’ll do that good deed. Why until the 40th day?”

“I’m confused and tired, Joice. I don’t want to think about anything!”

“Okay, I’ll read you my novel about the Apostle Peter, take a break. By the way, you probably shared your secrets with the Athos friends, since it’s easier to tell the most important and painful to someone who is out of your inner circle.”

Courtroom in the Universe

Joice’s words from the novel about St. Peter plunged me into the Mist. I was again in the hall with the huge Scales and the movie screen with frames from my life flashing on it. I saw unfamiliar faces in the Mist, saying that I ordered 40-days prayer in 40 monasteries for someone. And on the screen, I called the staff of the Patriarchate in Jerusalem and transferred the last money to them, then I called my friends and asked them to order the same prayer in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Optina Pustyn Monastery, on Greek Athos, and I ran through the monasteries that I knew in Moscow.

For whom was it? I heard voices in the Mist, “He betrayed her three times”. The winged creatures whispered among themselves. And one of them, with a cross in his hand, drove away from me the devil, who was whipping his tail in anticipation and squealing joyfully, “Ours!”

31 Before/10 After. House No. 5

Pluto

Somewhere in the Universe

As soon as I sat down on a cloud in House No. 5, right in front of me …

“I don’t want to see you!” I exclaimed and clung to the Guardian.

“Earthly reactions are awakening in you. You have to put up with me!” Pluto, in a long black robe, which covered his scorpion sting with the poison of pain, sat down on the cloud opposite.

“One has to face the truth,” said the Guardian. “When you remember on Earth what has happened here, on the Stairs, it’ll become easier to live!”

“I feel bad in Libra, the Sign of Venus,” Pluto sighed. “I stay here in exile with a whole generation, being a slow planet, floating in the clouds during 12–15 years. You’ll seek peace and balance, cooperation and justice, appreciating friendship, finding the best way out of crisis situations, following the path of minimum resistance, offering compromises. The Air element is conducive to increased communication. Any disharmony brings pain, and any bad peace is better than a good quarrel. Personal relationships play an important role, though you tend to give in. You don’t smell of selfishness, which is bad for your Self, but good for your soul.”

“Are you, by chance, in a degree of Saturn?” I supposed.

“In a degree that means a difficult childhood, a break with one or both parents,” Pluto continued calmly, “as well as people with excellent intuition, increased amorousness and sentimentality. Many of them belong to some clan. Mafiosi, for example. Plenty of useful contacts, connections, acquaintances. A quick mind is combined with cunning and cruelty, a desire to subjugate and suppress others. Duplicity and cunning, vanity, demonstrative disdain for enemies. Such people can wait for years without any murderous actions when their enemies themselves go to Heaven.”

“Stop, deceiver!” I exclaimed. “This is not about me!”

“A true warlock!” Pluto flashed his eyes and smiled. “It’s about me, that is, about the people you’ll be crossing paths in Sphere No. 5.”

“Will I fall in love with clan mafiosi?”

“Why not? In House No.5, I’m at a symbolic culmination, my Magic-Death-Sex-Big Capital energy is to be worked out in the Love-Creativity-Children Sphere. You can descend to the level of violent passions or create. Since I’m evil and strike your Sun, don’t expect mutual love. I’m a tank, either it is driving over you, or you move as a tank over those around you.”

“Evil Pluto is dangerous,” said the Guardian. “His energy will destroy you from the inside if you don’t pour it out into the world. He is a guest of Venus, and she loves arts. Direct your energy into creation of something, and your masterpieces will touch the masses. Pluto gives not only power over the masses, but fertility as well, multiplying everything on his way, exponentially.”

“Will I fall in love with a certain type of persons?”

“With Pluto despots and magicians,” Pluto nodded. “You’ll feel and attract men with a strong Pluto and the House of Death, Magic, Sex, Big Capital, such as murderers, mafia, sorcerers, sexual maniacs.”

“My Saturn is responsible for House No. 8, not you!”

“Officially, House No. 8 and the Sign of Scorpio are mine, Pluto’s. However, any planet can become a carrier of my energies, being appointed responsible for my Sphere of Interests. Your personality is Pluto in the hands and rings of Saturn. You are not Pluto in my pure form, you have my qualities. I’m in your House No. 5, that means fatal love with Pluto people, Pluto children, Plutonic creative works. They all will be stronger than you and like me, a magician-hypnotist who sets you on the verge of Life and Death.”

“Pluto with features of Venus?” I supposed.

“Yes, those who love beauty and art, something luxurious, or engaged in love magic – Pluto is magic, Venus means love. There are many options. You have Venus in House of Status, so your Pluto is a status one. The theme of creativity will be related to Pluto and Venus.”

“Death, Magic and Love?”

“Yes, darling. I’m the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead.”

“What about my children?”

“Geniuses children, here is Uranus next to me, but don’t forget that I hurt your Sun, being evil. Problems with children. Your child will start poisoning your earthly body while still in the womb, putting you on the brink of Death. One day, there will be a complete break in ties or the loss of children, their death. However, neither children nor lovers driving over you as tanks can kill you, since your Sun, I’m in opposition with, is stronger than me, Pluto, and it’s not me in charge of your Death.”

“What are your friends among other planets?” I asked darkly.

“We are not friends with Mars, thus inclining your men to violence, power, extremism, aggression, criminal inclinations, cruelty. At the same time, we give you an iron will. We get along with Neptune, it’s a direct path to art and to the stage. Pluto is a chic player and actor, and the connection with Neptune means freedom of speech, rich imagination and clairvoyance, the ability to penetrate the Heavenly Spheres. Possessing my magical power and attraction to Another Reality, you’ll come to Neptune the Key Keeper, and he’ll open the door to the Subtle World for you.”

“So will I be able to come here during my incarnation?”

“You will, if you want,” Pluto winked at me.

“What area of my life are you in charge of?”

“House No. 6, Health and earthly Work, Servicing, everything that distracts from spiritual development.”

“Will my work be related to Death and Magic?”

“Or to the subjects of Sphere No. 5. You’ll serve your Plutos, work for them. You’ll love your work, diving your heart and soul into it, treat projects as if they were your own children, working real miracles, but…”

Suddenly, Pluto stopped talking and magically pierced me with his gaze.

“The Grape Picker!” I remembered horrified.

Vindemiatrix instantly appeared in front of us. She grinned haughtily, taking Pluto by the arm, and silently led him away.

Library of the Universe

“Listen, Guardian, why are there so many incarnated here?” I asked thoughtfully in the Reading Room, examining those around me.

“They are looking for Knowledge, hints, advice, and someone get here subconsciously. You’ll be able to come to the Library too. In a dream, for example.”

“Will I be aware of reality in dreams?”

“With such passport not only in dreams!”

The book opened at the page with the story “Coffee”. A woman married by convenience committed a double murder, having poisoned herself and her husband’s mistress, who, not having yet realized her sudden death, tried in vain to shout to her beloved man.

“He doesn’t hear us, but life after death exists indeed.”

Love

Moscow

I got into the room with my things through the window and found on the windowsill a rosary with a silver cross engraved with St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Yes, I remembered, there was a prayer on the reverse side. I bought two pairs of rosaries on Athos, with the Wonderworker for my son, and the second one with Scales … for whom? An alarm clock on the windowsill with frozen hands. How many years before? When did the Time stop there? There were icons on the wall, including the Prayer for the Chalice. Why had I closed them?

“Hello, Alice,” Ray appeared on a bag of things.

“Hello,” I sighed sadly. “Why can’t you give me a hint? You’ve been living in the Astral World for a long time, and it’s only the 10th day for me!”

“Look at the icon of the Stairs. The angels are silently praying aside. The devils are dragging to Hell. As you understand, I’m far from an angel, but you are much more profitable for me in Paradise! No one will make the choice for you. Isn’t it your decision not to remember? Think about the deadline!”

“Why until the 40th day? On the 40th day, is it either to Hell or to Heaven?”

“No, you can be stuck here for years, but to finish the matter, you have time only until the 40th. What’s the difference between 40 days before and after? You’ve known it very well since childhood.”

“Since childhood? Why did I have to think about death as a child?” I almost cried from impotence, and Ray hugged me and abruptly turned me around to face the bookcase with photo albums on the bottom shelf, but all my mental attempts to pull out at least one …

“Who is easy without a body?” Ray chuckled. “There may be no other way out of here. Scan from a distance!”

“Ah!” I exclaimed from insight, recognizing bags with things in one of the pictures. “Until the 40th day, you can’t touch any stuff of the dead! There, in those bags, the things of the deceased were gathered, I don’t remember who he was, but I remember the bags! So, my case has to do with the stuff within this flat, these things? How shall I sort them all out to remember in time?!”

Ray shook his head and went to the windowsill, looking thoughtfully at the rosary with St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

“Perhaps he helps you in creating a small miracle. Fly to him, ask. You visited him once. There are two options now – an easy one and a hard one, the second is more useful.”

“The simple one is to move to his relics. Is the hard one to go back to him the very same day in the Past?”

Bari, Italy

I opened my eyes, kneeling on the stone floor in front of the grate, behind which there was a marble tombstone, hung with lamps, with the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, stolen in 1087 by smart citizens of Bari from the Turkish Lycia. At that time, the Venetians went for the relics too, but the Bari people were ahead of them, having carried out 4/5 of the relics, the Venetians took the rest and placed it on the island of Lido, appointing St. Nicholas as the patron of Venice along with Mark the Evangelist.

The liturgy began in Russian, priests from the Metochion in Bari often served there. Having placed on the lower ledge of the shrine the oil and the silver ring with St. Nicholas bought in the local icon shop, I opened the Akathist. The space near the relics in the small crypt in the basement left part of the Catholic basilica was as if electrified – facing the shrine, you found yourself in a stream that passed you through, from the relics to the niche with the image of the Saint, behind your back, where people left notes with wishes. St. Nicholas used to help travelers and orphans, people who had been slandered and innocently convicted, students with studies, girls with marriage, and two years before, he had saved me in an accident, but not only he.

Having read the Akathist, I reached the shrine with my hand to take back my ring and oil, went to the niche and left my wish note written on a piece of paper. After the liturgy, I left the basilica and safely took a step away from Me in the Past on the square, but followed her until the moment she disappeared in the Patriarchal Metochion of St. Nicholas on Corso Benedetto Croce, 130. How could I end up there?

“What did you feel and think about when you merged with yourself at the relics?” Ray asked, appearing nearby suddenly. “Did you write a note about love? Do you remember what way the Wonderworker brought you to him?”

“In my mind, in the Past, there was a thought he had saved me in some kind of accident.”

“Well, now it’s not about the accident, although it was somehow related. You were supposed to fly to Venice, by the way, to his relics. What a struggle between Venice and Bari! Instead of Venice, you were suddenly sent to Bari. The chain of events you saw in the Tablets once again and wrote down in the form of a novel broke apart.”

“Really? And why?”

“It was one of the Future scenarios leading you to an early return to Heaven. Your prayers were heard. The Space started changes, each link in the chain collapsed, one after another. It would seem a small detail to begin with – the Prime Minister didn’t come to the opening of something. As a result, the person who was going to fly with you to Venice… Well, don’t you remember? So you stayed with your delegation in the Patriarchal Metochion. By the way, your photo, by the curator of the trip from Bari, would seem to be an ordinary photo of a girl at the autumn sea against the Monopoli Tower, but in the end… A new chain of events formed instead of the broken previous one could have led you to a completely different scenario.”

“Could? You’re talking in riddles, Ray. What happened next?”

“What you wrote in your note to St. Nicholas. People formulate desires at random, and those tend to come true exactly as they were worded.”

“I haven’t seen my desire, Ray. She, I mean me, threw a note, written in advance, already crumpled.”

---

Ouranoupoli

“Alice, are you not tired of resting yet?” Kiri’s father exclaimed, hugging me at his counter as I returned from my Akathist reading at the border. “Why don’t you help me sell ice cream? Maybe you’ll meet your prince this way!”

“Princes are good until they marry you!” Kiri laughed. “Pray to St. Nicholas, he made girls married even without money!”

“Yes,” I nodded, “they depict him with bags of gold coins in Bari. He threw them through the window to a poor woman whose daughters were not married because of the lack of dowry.”

“It’s important to be soul mates,” Kiri’s father winked at me. “Real happiness is not in gold. Here are icons, for example. Do you like icons in gold? Neither do I. It’s not jewelry! If you want gold, go to the jewelry store, buy rings or chains, or order gold sticks in the bank. An icon is the soul of a Saint, looking at you. The soul doesn’t need a frame of earthly gold.”

“And who else of the Saints helps with the marriage?” Kiri asked. “I’ve heard about St. Catherine for the Catholics.”

“In Russia, they venerate St. Xenia of Petersburg. Holy fool, born at the beginning of the 18th century and canonized only in 1988. After the death of her husband, she began to say that she was he, as if she were dead, dressed in his clothes and responded only to his name. She donated her house and wandered the streets. At night she was building a temple, bringing bricks into it. Having received the gift of prophecy and healing, she helped women with grooms and children. A chapel was built over her grave. Pilgrims try to take a piece of land with them. Xenia helps my godmother all her life. My godmother’s birthday is on the 7th of June, and Xenia’s memorial day is on the 6th. The godmother turned to Xenia with housing, job and other issues. The people who came to help her were called Xenia.”

“Wow! I wish Xenia helped us with sales! Icons were not sold within Mount Athos in the Past, and now there are shops in every monastery. Pilgrims buy icons there, although we sell the same icons cheaper. Could you, like Xenia, give away all your earthly possessions?”

I took a step away from Me in the Past and sighed, “All our earthly possessions are our Memories.”

Courtroom in the Universe

The Mist was enveloping my Consciousness. The Moonlight Sonata was pouring without interruption. There or inside me? It ended and started again, ended and started again, it was endless… The left bowl of Scales outweighed the right one again. The devils made a joyful noise. An old woman came up to the Scales through the crowd. She said to have shared her grief with me once when I returned from Athos. Her daughter, called Alice as me, gave birth to a dead child. Frames were projected onto the screen. The woman came to me, and I gave her the icon of the Belt of the Virgin, a piece of the blessed Belt, the only one I had then, the icons of Alexandra and Catherine for her second daughter. The woman put her “Thank you”, a heart-shaped solar ball of energy, on the right bowl, and the Scales became swaying in search of balance.

The Mist, everything was in the Mist, even Joice’s voice reading to me in the Tower about the Apostle Peter. A boy appeared at the Scales. Strange, I didn’t want to see him, who was he? I couldn’t hear his words. There were dark frames on the screen, and I fell into them, into the night full of the Moonlight Sonata. We were driving in a car in complete and oppressive silence, and I broke the silence with a cry, “Talk to me!”

And Time stopped, we drove for a long, long time, looping through the labyrinth of the streets in the subconscious. I was talking to him, but not that and not worthy to talk about. We had to pass just a couple of houses, but we drove, turning left and right, as if diligently trying hard to avoid the same sore spot. He felt everything inside. He was not like… who? I didn’t want to remember anything! The Athos rosary appeared on the screen. The boy at the Scales kept talking. I didn’t hear his words, but I had given him a book he would hardly read, although he was in it. Who was he? The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder. Some letter, a cafe and coffee, he talked to me fiddling with the rosary, about … who? I was silent, and he said, “Talk to me!”

Joice’s voice in the Tower, reading to me about St. Peter, came from the Mist. The boy at the Scales put his “Thank you” in the right bowl, turned around, looking for me, and having found, for some reason said “Sorry”, disappearing.

A woman in black, with white hair, appeared and hugged me crying. Her mother seemed to have died. “You will pray for us all on Athos, and everything will be fine, everything will be fine with us!” The next day I was leaving for Athos. That icon emerged out of my memory as well as memorial notes about her mother to the Athos monasteries, which I passed through pilgrims early in the morning on the pier along with donations. The woman went to Scales and silently put down her “Thank you”. Her face doubled, while the Moonlight Sonata was getting louder and louder. On the screen, she was reading my book with a poem dedicated to her. I didn’t remember which one and what it was about, but there was the word “Love” in it, and I heard her voice, “Talk to me!”

At the same time, I heard Joice’s voice in the Tower, something about the keys to Paradise held by St. Peter. The Mist filled the Court so much that I couldn’t distinguish anything anymore, the Moonlight Sonata displaced all other sounds and voices and abruptly… broke off. I opened my eyes in Joice’s Tower.

“It’s dawn. You have to go, Alice!”

30 Before/11 After. House No. 5

Girl with violets

Somewhere in the Universe

I noticed a girl gliding towards us through the clouds. She greeted me and handed…

“Violets?!” horrified, I looked at the Guardian in hope.

“I’m daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, the highest manifestation of Saturn, Pluto’s wife, the goddess of the Kingdom of the Dead, Persephone, or Proserpine,” the Girl said. “They knew me back in Babylon as Nibiru, and the Zoroastrians called me Daena. Pluto kidnapped me when I was picking violets. I live either with him or on Earth. He gave me a pomegranate seed to taste so that I would always remember death and return to his Kingdom.”

“Proserpine belongs to the light spectral class,” the Guardian consoled me. “She gives a unique chance to open a secret door on Via Combusta, I mean the Burnt Road.”

“Does Proserpine mean Death?” I supposed.

“I’m for radical transformation,” she smiled, “rebirth, transition to another level. The call of the Higher Forces for the constant development of the Spirit. Striving for the Absolute, purity and impeccability. I’ll encourage you to move up, to work on yourself continuously and systematically, not allowing you to stop. As soon as you get stuck, I’ll immediately provoke something. Of course, such people don’t feel easy on Earth because of the increasing demands not only on themselves, but also on others.”

“If you implement the energy of Proserpine, you’ll become a professional with the capital letter,” the Guardian added. “In extreme situations, when everyone refuses to take the hit, signing the own helplessness, you’ll be able to handle it.”

“You need to systematize information scrupulously and fundamentally,” Proserpine continued, “and improve yourself in Sphere No. 5, plunging into it with your head, climbing your Stairway to Heaven. I usually patronize the fundamental sciences, complex analytical works, the creation of global systems, medicine and genetics. However, if one is a magician by passport, I push to work with the Subtle World – alchemy, astronomy, magic, the study of posthumous states… As for workaholism, mathematical and analytical abilities and structuring, I’m Saturn-like and can’t stand lazy people. Saturn works in the earthly area with the majority, in your case he is oriented to the Heavenly, while I focus exclusively on the Heavenly. We give you a great potential for spiritual growth. Your Saturn has a Plutonic character, I’m Pluto’s wife, and we both are in the Sphere where your Burnt Road is located.”

“What kind of road is that?” I asked.

“Both realities, Earthly and Ours, are combined on it, and there is the Transition Point there, the door that breaks the Circle. People don’t notice it usually. The task is to find the door. Believe me, the three of us, Saturn, Pluto and I, as well as your Selene and Sirius, will act together and exclusively for the good! As a result of the incarnation, through a deep transformation, you need to stop being dependent on the earthly psychologically, to let go of all attachments to earthly pleasures and passions. Until you begin to let go of the transient and conditional, I’ll be poisonous with you, but one day the Light of Truth beyond the Time Space will be revealed to you.”

“To spur me on, will you also take something away?”

“I’ve been wandering in the Sign of Libra for a little less than a century, this position is not your personal, but a collective one. In the worst case, the concepts of Good and Evil are confused, people appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing, passing off black as white and vice versa. You’ll be surrounded by such people. I hope you won’t become like them. In general, it’s a sign of the transformation of human relations. My degree is more individual. You’ll be distinguished by altruism, sacrifice, many talents, kindness and modesty, craving for the transcendent, the ability for great deeds. Unfortunately, people use your kindness for selfish purposes, especially higher-ranking ones. Parents have an important place in your life, perhaps just due to the fact that …”

“Where is my mother? Why haven’t I seen her yet?” I asked sadly and almost hopelessly.

“Still ahead,” the Guardian patted me on the shoulder.

“As a child, on the eve of discovering your magical abilities, you’ll write a detective story, and your mother will take it to read to her employees. You’ll conduct mysterious investigations with classmates, prefer movies with detective topics, read Agatha Christie. Later you’ll visit Sherlock Holmes’ house and the Platform 9 and 3/4 in London. The thirst for unraveling the tangle of everything hidden and mysterious is your guiding thread to our World, don’t get stuck on detectives! There’s Markeb, one of the stars of the Argo Ship, about 30 minutes away from me. This star inclines one to secrets, magic or to deep religiosity, travelling for knowledge and enlightening people.”

“Secret Knowledge!” said the Guardian. “While magical practices will throw you off the Stairs into the realm of black spirits, making you a hostage of the abyss of the Lower Astral.”

“However,” Proserpine sighed, “everything that concerns Love, Children, Creativity, you are attached by heart to, will bring you suffering – death, loss, sudden breaks in relationships, collapse of plans. Pluto has a colossal force of mental pressure, unlike Mars, who has a physical force. Pluto humiliates your Self, grinding it into powder. The Grape Picker and I will take everything and everyone away in order to avoid attachments to the earthly, for the sake of your soul’s transformation into spiritual being. I’m at the distance of 150 degrees to Venus, it’s called quickens and means an abrupt (!) transition to a qualitatively different level of Consciousness, due to instant liberation from something or someone, including their death. Love is a wonderful stimulus for bright creativity. My square to Saturn will put your Self into a corner. You won’t be able to influence the events in any way, but they won’t be your fault. To get out of the corner, take non-standard actions and transform earthly love into heavenly love. Given the terminal degree of your Venus in Piscis, which guarantees Universal Love, we’ll succeed!”

“Thank you,” I whispered, “you are all very kind to me!”

Library of the Universe

“How far is the Burnt Road with the Door to Heaven, Angel?”

“The first turn to the right after your meeting with Uranus and someone else.”

“The Assistant of my Death, Mr. Uranus, is he also in House No. 5?” I asked sadly as I moved to the Reading Hall.

“Anyhow, he can’t escape from the Circle!”

“Is he evil too?”

“Good and Evil are relative concepts. Hardship and losses on Earth should purify the soul as the fire of the Holy Spirit. You, the human being, will find something unfair. You will think, ‘Why?’ I advise you to ask, ‘What for? What’s the purpose?’”

The book opened at the page with the story “The Stranger”. A girl, married to a foreigner, lost husband in an accident and remained alone in the foreign country, with neither job no money. Ironically, a man who fell in love with her, should have died instead of her husband, however…

“Never give violets to anyone! They are certainly beautiful, but… according to legend, people used to place them in coffins of prematurely dead young girls. They say Persephone was picking violets when Hades took her to the Kingdom of the Dead.”

Ghost Ship

Moscow

“What do you feel now, looking at their faces?” Ray asked as I scanned another photo album.

“No one is on Earth anymore.”

“Would you like to see them?”

“My parents, yes,” I moved on to scanning the books on the shelf, Ray watched me with interest. “I remember these books. I printed out the manuscripts on my printer and gave them to a bookbinding workshop. Then I drew pictures directly on their covers and signed the titles with a marker.”

“Rarity!”

“Come on, these are drafts. This shelf contains the collections of Larisa Kuzminskaya, my godmother introduced us, and Larisa was the first to recognize my talent. Dedications to Marina Tsvetaeva should be in the Tsvetaeva Museum library, we performed there. And these are my poems on the topics ‘No Death’, ‘Poet’, ‘In This City’, ‘April the Girl’. It’s terrible! All these raw books are in the Russian Book Chamber!”

“You left a great opportunity for treasure hunters to dive into the sea of versions of your poems. Have you managed to edit everything planned? You said that you would suffer in the Astral World if you left your raw Self to people. Are you suffering?”

“No.”

“Why?” Ray never stopped torturing me. “Well, look further.”

“Prose about ghosts, early stories, including children’s ones. Reprints of ‘The Book of Secret Knowledge’ in the ‘Playing Another Reality’ series. Next …”

“Come on, I’m already very interested in what’s next!”

“It’s ‘Guardian Angel’, the novel you waited for so much. You got offended that in ‘the Book of Knowledge’ I called you a ghost. I promised you wouldn’t be a ghost in my ‘Guardian’. Then you came, and we were reading the third part together in the kitchen, how you had brought me to your Arbat, in the lair of the black magician. There was a chess floor, everything was black and white there. Do you remember the poem ‘Beyond the power of magicians’? You liked it, and this is ‘Nostalgia for Atlantis’, all the poems written to you.”

“Thank you, I appreciated it, although there are not all the poems dedicated to me! Back to prose, where I am not a ghost. What’s the title of the third part?”

“‘Seven seconds’? About the accident. I had the stitches just removed, and I was all in green and limping. You cured my ear, fed me strawberries and said that it would heal before the wedding,” I smiled.

“Would you like to return to Earth in a body, if, for example, the Higher Forces allowed us to be together, or I repented and stopped witchcraft, or to experience love again with someone else, a happy love, a mutual one? To dive headlong into it? The love you’ve written so much about both in prose and in verse, the one you have been looking for on Earth all your life?”

I thought about it and walked up to Ray. He stood at the window looking at me silently, as if asking me to pull out a card from the Tarot deck, a very important one. I hugged him, as once long before, when he had been standing in the same way at the window with the Tarot deck in his hands, waiting for me to pull out just one card.

“I don’t want to go back anymore. I don’t want earthly love, because it… doesn’t exist.”

Ouranoupoli

“Is it the 1st of January today?” I asked Dimitra.

“No, the 1st of November. The 1st of January is quieter!” she laughed.

We used to joke so, Dimitra estimated the time by comparing the current date with the virtual date in season or off-season, depending on sales.

“Sophia has gone! With Faith, Hope and Love to boot!” she reported not without pride. “The ship with tourists came half empty. A woman burst into my shop and shouted, ‘Sophia!’. I showed her the icon, she grabbed it, without even bargaining, paid and ran away. Such a strange one! She said her goddaughter’s name is Sophia. Tell me about the icon, please!”

“Sophia was born in the 2nd century on the territory of present-day Italy under Emperor Hadrian in a wealthy Christian family. She married a pagan, but he loved her so much that never even asked her to renounce the faith. Their daughters – Faith, Hope and Love – were brought up in the spirit of Christianity. Sophia’s husband died, and the pagan Emperor ordered the family to come to the palace. Calling each of the daughters in turn and promising sweet gifts, Hadrian invited them to renounce Christ. After refusing to accept paganism, the Emperor tortured the children and ordered them to be executed. Faith was 12 years old, Hope was 10, Love was 9. Sophia buried the decapitated bodies of her daughters outside the city and didn’t go away from their grave for two days, until her soul was taken to Heaven. They were canonized as Holy Martyrs. In the 8th century, their relics were transferred from Rome to an abbey in France, but during the French Revolution, the relics disappeared, and the abbey turned into a tavern. Although, they say, some of the relics were found in the 20th century. The feast day is celebrated on September 17/30. They pray to her for women’s happiness and love, for family reunification and the birth of children, but I think she is about Heavenly Love, Faith in the Higher Forces, Hope in God, about the Divine Wisdom and humility.”

“And I think, Alice, that… you live in a crazy city, in a frantic rhythm, while we live surrounded by icons in a remote village on the border with the Holy Mountain. It would seem, nowhere else closer to God. Well, aren’t you boring to come to us every year? I would have gone crazy!”

“This place gives the opportunity to step away from the vanity and talk face-to-face with Heavens. It’s just that you stay here every day and don’t realize grace. Back to Sophia! I like her rare icon in Kiri’s shop, ‘Sophia the Divine Wisdom’. It’s painted in two versions – my favorite is Kiev’s one, ‘7 Pillars of Faith’, celebrated on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin on September 8/21; the 2nd one is the Novgorod one, celebrated on August 15.”

“What do they look like? I’ll ask the twin monks to paint it!”

“Well, ‘7 Pillars of Faith’ is a powerful sevenfold icon, located in St. Sophia Cathedral. It depicts a Ladder of 7 steps: Faith, Hope, Love, Purity, Humility, Nobility, Glory. On the sides, there are 7 Old Testament Prophets and Forefathers: King David, Aaron, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Each of them holds holy things in their hands. They anticipate the birth of Christ as the Divine Wisdom incarnation on Earth. The Ladder connects Earth with Heaven, leads to the Temple, where the Virgin Mary in the ‘Oranta’ type, similar to the protective icon ‘The Sign’ with both hands raised up, stands in clouds on the crescent sickle-shaped Moon. Christ is depicted as a child on the tunic of the Virgin, blessing with His right hand and holding an orb in His left. The Temple has 7 columns-pillars with the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit in the images from the Apocalypse of John the Theologian: 7 candlesticks is mind, a book with 7 seals is wisdom, a stone with 7 eyes is advice, 7 trumpets of Jericho is strength, an eye with 7 stars is vision, 7 phials with incense is godliness, 7 lightning bolts is the fear of God. Above the Temple, there are 7 Archangels, each holding a sign of his ministry: Michael – a sword, Uriel – lightning, Gabriel – a lily flower, and so on. In the center above the Temple, there is God the Father and the Holy Spirit, as well as the inscription ‘Wisdom has built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars’, the word ‘House’ means the Virgin Mary. The Novgorod icon is completely different, is miraculous too. The Virgin Mary and John the Baptist stand on the sides of the throne of Christ. It’s interesting that the temple, built in 989, was dedicated to the icon, although the icon itself got into it only in the 15th century. They say that ‘wisdom’ translated from Greek into French means ‘Trinity’, right?”

“I don’t know French. Oh! Vasilios! Finally! This is Alice! And this is Vasilios!” Dimitra spoke in Greek and summarized in English, “I said that you are my friend and believe in God, as he does, and one day you’ll write a book about us. Vasilios offered to include our miracle in it. Scientists from the Greek Academy of Sciences are exploring the chapel of St. Theodora in the mountains of Greek Arcadia. The stone chapel, standing on the water, is sprouted with high trees, as if hairs were growing upwards from its walls and roof, but it doesn’t fall apart, despite the multi-ton weight of the trees. Theodora was a Byzantine martyr from a Peloponnesian village near Megalopoli. At the age of 17, dressed in men’s clothes, she replaced her sick and impoverished father, who couldn’t go to war. Theodora fought bravely and after the war decided to leave for the monastery, but a woman fell in love with her. After the refusal, she slandered Theodora, saying she was pregnant, and demanded their wedding. Theodora didn’t betray the secret so that her father wouldn’t be harmed, and she was martyred, asking Christ, ‘Let my blood become a stream, my body – a temple, and my hair – trees.’ Whatever people can do out of love!”

“No, Dimitra, slander is not out of love. True Love fulfilled Theodora’s wish!”

Dimitra translated my words to Vasilios, and he handed me the olives. I opened my wallet, but Vasilios shook his head categorically.

“He sees you different from others, Alice, and won’t take money, but asks you to pray for him. Oh, man of God, our Vasilios, God’s man! Take your olives and let’s go back! My husband doesn’t speak English well and might miss the customers!”

Tower of Ouranoupoli

I was sitting on the seashore, wondering what to do next, when I suddenly noticed a Ghost Ship slowly sailing from the islands towards the Holy Mountain.

“Lack of humility,” I heard, turned around and saw a monk. He was alive, and, sitting down next to me, he continued, “Humility is perhaps the only way to Salvation. A patient one can endure hardships and adversity, but won’t humble oneself and …”

“I am a ghost,” I whispered in surprise.

“Do you think monks cannot see ghosts? This Ship has been sailing the same route for hundreds of years, and each time it crashes at the foot of Cape the Killer, next to Karoulia. Its captain is one of the stubbornest ghosts in the world!”

“Is Karoulia the place where invisible hermits live?”

“It’s a wilderness, hard-to-reach place, from that side even pirates couldn’t approach the Mountain. The word “karoulia” means ropes, chains. There are caves in the crevices of sheer cliffs above the abyss, and the cells-huts on the ledges look like swallows’ nests. Most of the monks on Athos live in luxury, and those with strong spirit go to Karoulia. They fish from 80-meter cliffs, collect rainwater, since summer is the time of drought, it’s usually 50 degrees, and in winter it’s very cold because of the wind. On bare rocks there are ropes and chains for hermits to move, and winches for food.”

“Are there many cells and caves there?”

“Nobody counted them, but 12 are the active ones.”

“12… as the invisible hermits?”

“And the Apostles,” the monk smiled. “Mostly Russians and Serbs lived in Karoulia, although the territory belongs to the Great Lavra. The cells cut off from the outside world by a gorge are called horrible. Monks come there for a while, having taken a vow – there are too many devils, they pull you into the abyss, but humility is a great thing, if you pray, you humble yourself, and they retreat.”

“Is it the abyss, the depth of which is equal to the height of the Mountain?”

“Has anyone been there? Measured? Whatever they invent about the abyss, even that some octopus the monster lives in it. It’s the abyss of the Devil, who can draw anyone even from a high rung of the Stairs of the Spirit. There are many devils there – temptations, especially strong at night – they throw stones, make you fear. However, like snakes, they cannot harm those who is strong in Spirit. Although, at night, out of habit, it seems, here it is, the Apocalypse, so stormy the weather is there! Humility and prayer give us a chance to reach Heaven.”

“Did Father Paisios live in Karoulia?”

“No, but his spiritual mentor, the Russian hieromonk Tikhon, did, and a disciple of the Russian St. Silouan the Athonite, archimandrite Sophronios, and the godson of Tsar Alexander II, monk Nikon. The monks of Karoulia are noted for their longevity. The Russian Hesychast monk Nil lived about 100 years. Father Stefan the Serbian was also special. His cell was burnt down, he moved into a cave. He talked to people from a distance in different languages and wrote a lot. One day pilgrims were drinking tea and a poisonous snake crawled in. He picked it up with his hands, said that God ordered to destroy the devil’s offspring, tore the snake into two parts and threw it away.”

“Did hesychasts live in Karoulia?”

“Joseph the Hesychast lived in a rock between Karoulia and Katounakia. His grave is located in the kalive of St. Harlampy. There’s a Tower not far from it.”

“Tower?” I wondered, looking up at Joice’s Tower.

“Yes, they are similar,” the monk smiled. “In that Tower, the monks used to hide icons, shrines and themselves from pirates. The dungeon connected it with other monasteries and the Tower of Ouranoupoli. I think the dungeon still exists, but it’s not open to everyone, as the Karoulia’s Ear, a place in the desert, the Ear of the Creator. Whoever whispers something into it, he is immediately heard by God directly. But, of course, God hears everyone, no matter where you are talking to Him from, the main thing is to speak with your heart like a child.”

“I saw a cloud over the Mountain, as if it were St. George the Victorious.”

---

“Yes, he’s often there! His image is in one of the ossuaries of Karoulia, he appeared to the hermits. There are some signed skulls in every cave. The monks take them and talk to them as if they were alive… Don’t be like the Ghost Ship, Alice. The Past cannot be changed, it must be accepted, let it go. Try to pray continuously so that no one can throw you down the Stairs. You never know who appears to you in what form. Ordeals are hard, as one’s lifetime exam. You may see someone you know and reach out to that one, and this is not the one you think, but a devil in one’s guise. Or someone asks you a worthless, at first glance, question, but the answer to it will be decisive. Let go of everything earthly, and the door to Heaven will immediately open.”

29 Before/12 After. House No. 5

Bang-bang!

Somewhere in the Universe

As soon as we returned to House No. 5, the sky turned black, lightning flashed, thunder struck right at me, and I collapsed from the clouds. It smelled damp. I sat down on a stone surrounded by reeds.

“Be careful, my soul! You are in a deep swamp, every step may be your last one,” the Guardian smiled.

Suddenly, right from the sky, a man like clown fell on me.