Bee Happy Read online

  After looking at all four years of high school, the year books were put away and Sally went to the kitchen to get them some lemonade and cookies. Jim gave Calli a quick kiss on the cheek, hoping she’d relax a bit. He could tell that she wasn’t at all comfortable this evening. “What’s up with you tonight? I know that last night was late and very stressful for you. How is Roger today?” “He’s absolutely fine,” Calli replied. “It seems like nothing ever happened. We pulled the bee hives out of the machine shed, cleaned them up, painted them and he moved them to the pond, placing them exactly where they’d been when he was a boy. And then the strangest thing happened. He went back to the house to take a nap, I stretched out beneath the willow tree, fell asleep, and…” Sally returned with the food. “Wait, you have to catch me up with the rest of your day.” Calli recapped her experiences and told both of them about discovering the bees. Sally munched on a cookie and wondered out loud, “Do you suppose there’s some kind of time warp happening down by that pond? Or maybe a vortex of energy that brings in things from another dimension?” Jim looked at Sally with an affirming look and Calli felt her head spin. There wasn’t anything she understood about anything that Sally had just said. “Wait a minute. You have to back up and give me a chance to understand what you two just decided happened. I don’t know anything about a vortex or dimensions or ….” Sally sighed, and grabbed another cookie waiting for Jim to take the lead with this conversation. Jim took the hint and scooted to the other end of the couch so he could look at Calli face to face. Sally was sitting in her favorite rocking chair, ready for the evening story time, just like a kid at the library, cookies, lemonade and a great story. Let the tales begin.

  Jim cleared his throat, and began. “I guess it’s my turn to share my experiences with the other side. Most people know me as the guy with the funny painted van who showed up here about ten years ago, looking for a place to call home. Everyone thinks I’m an old hippie because of my multicolored van but actually I’m a scientist who’s lost his way in the world of quantum physics.” Scientist, now Calli could get behind that notion. Someone grounded in science surely didn’t believe in ghosts. She felt a sense of relief pour over her, settling back into the pillows on the couch; Calli was all ears waiting to hear more. “I worked in an experimental lab, where we were working on a language of code that was intended to communicate with beings on other planets in the far away galaxies. It was like a code of light, that had sequences, and we were sending this code hoping to have it returned or something similar so we would know that we’d made contact. Now, I know everyone’s seen the movie, but this was real life for me. I was at the lab one evening when our satellites received the indication that there was a response from another star.” Calli’s eyes were about to pop out of her head, they had gotten so big listening to his story, messages from stars, codes of light. Oh, this really was like Star Trek, and she was not a Trekky. “I know all of this seems like it’s from some television fantasy series, but most people don’t know what happens in our labs. We are always looking for confirmation that we aren’t alone in the universe and hopefully those we contact are more intelligent than we are. At first I thought it was a fluke, and a mistake, but the sequence just kept repeating itself and finally I found a pattern that seemed to make sense to me. I programmed out transmitter to repeat what we were receiving. And then the sequence changed. So I reprogrammed the message to match the change. This went on for several hours. All the time I’m thinking that I’ve truly made what everyone labels ‘first contact’.” Sally now was sitting on the edge of her chair, riveted to Jim’s tale. Calli was still in non-believer land wondering if she should stay or run screaming into the night.

  “Please, don’t be frightened or run away.” Calli’s eyes bugged out further, how did he know that was what I was thinking? Jim continued, “I’ve told this story before and have lost some very dear friends because they didn’t believe me, that’s why no one here knows who I am and where I came from. I wanted to start over with a clean slate and do something totally different, something that people would understand and I could be part of a community again. The rest of the story gets more bizarre. Suffice it to say, no one believed me and my superiors were sure it was just a fluke in the programming and basically told me I could look for another job. I was almost frantic in trying to get people to believe me, I went to research lab after lab and university after university trying to get some grant money to continue with these codes that I’d found. No one believed me and I basically was lost.” Now, Calli started to feel a little sorry for him, but still didn’t believe much of what he was telling them.

  “I was married and had a little girl. She was the love of my life and my little girl stole my heart every time she gave me a hug and called me ‘DaDa’. After about six months of beating my head against the wall, I gave up and sank into a deep depression. My wife and daughter decided to visit her family in Vermont for a few weeks, hoping I would find the courage to pull myself together if I were totally alone. Which didn’t make any sense to me at the time, but looking back it was the only sane thing she could do. My depression was dragging them into the pit with me. On their way to Vermont, it was a rainy dark night and the roads were slick, on a curve in the mountains, she lost control of the car and plunged off the road, killing both of them instantly. When I heard the news, I went out of my mind and was placed in an institution for my own safety. Lucky for me, there was a hypnotherapist who worked there and she began to work with me in past life regressions and I discovered enough spiritually to bring myself out of my depression. And part way through my recovery, I started hearing voices. Mind you I knew that I wasn’t crazy, but I also didn’t understand why I was hearing voices. Eventually they became clear enough that I could distinguish who was talking to me. At first it was my guardian angel and my spirit guides. Finally I had contact with my wife. I heard her voice and she told me all about what had happened, and after a couple of times I understood why she and my daughter had left. They had completed their contract with this lifetime and now were on the other side to help me with my work and to finish the confirmation about my connection to life in the universe.’

  The room was quiet, while Jim paused, centering himself again and grabbing a cookie. As he ate the cookie, this gave Sally and Calli time to exchange glances, but neither of them knew what to say out loud. So they just waited quietly until he was ready to continue.

  “I know this must be almost too much to comprehend, but if I hadn’t lived it I wouldn’t believe it either. After a few months, I was released from the institution and found a little efficiency apartment. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I knew these experiences had to be documented if not for anyone else but myself. During this time period, my wife and eventually my daughter filled me in on what they were doing on the other side or heaven if that’s what you believe in. I haven’t done anything with the manuscript. I figure someday I’ll be ready to share it with the world, but not just yet. I never saw my wife and daughter as a spirit figures, but just heard their words in my head. So when I heard your grandfather talk about his grandfather, I knew it was time to at least tell the two of you about my life. I came here to totally change my focus and to basically be grounded and connected with the earth. I had spent too many years out in the ethers, in the stars so to speak and wasn’t living here on this beautiful planet. I had been trying to escape, instead of living the beautiful life here. So that’s why I understand and I hope you’re not too frightened because I’d like to remain your friend.” The pleading look on his face made Calli get up and sit beside him. She held his hand, “Jim, I don’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through and I don’t know much about this stuff. But what I do know is that you are an honest man, a caring man and I can tell that you truly believe everything you’ve told us tonight. I’ll do my best to open my mind a tiny bit so I can begin to understand some of what you’ve said. You will always be my friend, please don’t worry.”

  Sally remained quiet, tak
ing in everything Jim had shared. Being psychic, she knew that he had been telling them the truth and as she watched the energy fields between Jim and Calli, she knew it was totally possible that Calli’s dream about walking down the aisle and marrying Jim might turn out to be reality instead of a dream.

  Chapter 16 Lessons The next morning Calli was glued to the internet and searching. She looked up quantum physics and didn’t have a clue what it was all about. She googled Jim’s name and found that he’d been on staff at very prestigious institutions in the past. She found the article about the death of his wife and daughter. She looked up hypnotherapy and guardian angels; she was like a search engine wanting to know more and understanding less and less. Sally hadn’t said very much after Jim had finished telling his story. The evening just ended, the cookies and lemonade were gone and everyone went home. For sure today was a lunch date with Sally, hoping she’d get her perspective on everything he’d talked about. About 10 am, Calli decided it was time to go outside and ground herself. The weeds were calling her name, and it was therapeutic for her to pull them, hoe them down and be in the sunshine. She was wearing her hat today, not wanting to get too much sun. Sally would say she was closing off her crown chakra, but she knew that she wasn’t wearing a crown and what in the world was a chakra? The birds were flying around, and the baby birds were testing out their wings. She loved the new fuzzy robins, they looked so plump and fat, and they hadn’t flown off their baby fat. Her favorite wren was singing away, he loved to sit on the very tip top of the blue spruce. His song made her heart swell with love, love of nature and life. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about everything Jim talked about last night. He has to be a very intelligent man to be a scientist in quantum physics, she thought. Calli considered most of them in the nerd category, but he didn’t fit that description. Maybe the ten years that he’d been here working as a gardener had changed him. And how had her feelings towards him shifted? She didn’t know for sure, but she was not going to decide anything today. This was a day to let everything settle, to be a gardener and talk to her friend. Finished with her weed control, she put all her tools away and headed for the shower. She wanted to feel clean and fresh when she went into town to have lunch with Sally. The warm water felt good, she’d worked her shoulder muscles pretty hard with her hoeing. Maybe she’d look at the second hand shop after lunch and see if there were any new dresses that caught her eye.

  Sally was sitting on the bench anticipating Calli’s arrival. There was a box of fresh pastries sitting beside her, she knew that Calli loved glazed donuts and cherry filled anything! This was her way of expressing her thanks for all the vegetables she’d received. Calli laughed when she peered into the box, “Oh, yes! You remembered the cherry filling! I’m not sharing any of this with Roger. He’ll have to come to town himself to get some of these. So tell me, how did Jim’s story affect you last night?” Calli started with the dessert first, ignoring the deli sandwich that Sally had for her. With cherry filling dripping all over her hands, Calli waited to hear her professional opinion. After all she was the psychic, spiritual one on the bench. “Well, I wondered about Jim when I first met him years ago, before he started taking produce to the farmers market. He started attending the church I go to, and he seemed very quiet and shy, but there was something about him that made me wonder what was going on underneath the quiet exterior. I really didn’t get to know him there. Whenever I see him at the court house or around town, he’s always been nice and upbeat. I would have never known that he’d dealt with deep depression. He’s definitely gotten that out of his aura.” There she goes, Calli thought, using words I don’t understand. “Please talk in real English, the kind that us normal people can understand. What is an aura?” Sally rolled her eyes; this was like going to spirituality class 101. “You’ve been my friend all these years and you still don’t know what an aura is?” Calli shook her head, “You know that when you start talking about all this stuff I only half listen to what you’re saying. But now I’m ready, it’s time that I start paying attention to this weird stuff and get some type of vocabulary that I can understand. I really do like Jim and I feel like I’d better start to educate myself, especially since I found out that he’s a scientist and all. Does that make any sense, a scientist who is into spirituality?” With that, Sally laughed, “Oh, yes, it makes perfect sense. Any scientist that studies quantum physics has to understand the ‘Big Picture’. The fact that we aren’t alone in the universe and that there is a design that couldn’t have been created by mere man, but that there has to be a source somewhere in the universe that is far more intelligent than we’ll ever hope to be. So to answer your first question, your aura is the energy field that surrounds your physical body. It is made up of several layers that all provide different information to you on different levels. The one you’re most familiar with is your mental body. That’s where you live most of your time. In your head!” Calli didn’t like the fact that Sally was calling her ‘mental’. And of course, Sally knew that’s how she would take that statement. “Now, don’t go off and stop listening to me because you think I just called you mental. I know how your mind works. There’s another layer that’s called the emotional body, and that’s where you have your emotional responses to life events. I do know that you understand that idea.” Calli nodded her head ‘yes’ and continued to listen as Sally talked about all seven layers of her aura and how when she was mad her aura would turn red and when she was relaxed it was more blue and green. “So, you are telling me you can see colors around me?” “Yes, I can see them sometimes, I don’t usually heighten that sense all the time because it can be distracting, and I need to get things accomplished at work and home. But when it’s necessary for me to know what’s going on with someone I can tune in and see what emotions are ruling a person at that particular moment. Your aura is generally a calm color, but when you get all upset, you can be bright red.” Calli was doing her best to follow this line of thought; after all she’d asked to understand, so she’d better pay attention.

  The lunch hour flew by and Calli still had plenty of questions floating around in her ‘mental’ body. She laughed at herself; maybe she was learning a few things. “Can we continue this tomorrow night? I probably need to spend some time with Roger tonight. We do have bee keeper lessons to start,” she asked. “Of course, I’d love to actually get my best friend aware of all her spiritual gifts and psychic abilities; we’ll talk until the cows come home!” Sally laughed at herself. The old farm expressions always made Calli smile, she’d heard them growing up and her grandfather was always using them to make a point. “I’ll bring supper for us tomorrow night and we can continue with my spiritual education. I hope you have enough patience and can keep explaining everything enough times until I get all of this to get into my head so that it makes sense to a simple gardener,” Calli was almost pleading with her friend. “My dear friend, you are so much more than a simple gardener, you are definitely a natural healer and once you find your way, you’re going to amaze even yourself.” With that Sally hurried back to work, not wanting any more questions about Calli being a healer; it was something for her to ponder until tomorrow night. She hoped that this opening would happen quickly for her, because she knew that impatience was one of Calli’s finer qualities.

  The second hand shop was crowded; it was blue tag day, which meant everything with a blue tag was half price off the already low price. Calli seemed content to browse and wonder if she could psychically find the perfect dress for the wedding, which was only a couple days away. She’d almost forgotten about it with all the worries with her grandfather. She took her hand and ran it over the ends of the rows of clothing. Wondering if she could ‘feel’ which rack was the best one to browse to find her perfect dress. She was being silly and pretending that she would have an intuitive flash and would understand instantly which row to browse, when she felt a tingling in her hand as she held it in front of the third row. She stopped in her tracks, backed up to the secon
d row of clothes and felt nothing. Going back to the third row, there it was again, a tingling, sort of like electricity. Moving on to the fourth row, she again felt nothing. She glanced around the shop, hoping no one was watching her. Everyone was too busy with their own hunting to notice what she was doing. As she walked down the third row, she kept her hand moving slightly above the dresses. She felt nothing. About half way down, the tingling returned. Walking a little further, it stopped. She backed up and there it was again, the tingling happened whenever she moved over one particular yellow dress. Again she checked to make sure no one was paying attention to her; she pulled the dress from the rack and held it up. To her amazement, the dress almost sparkled; it was absolutely as stylish as any dress she’d ever seen here. Of course it was in her size, she went back to the dressing area, still running her hand over the remaining dresses to see if another one would ‘pop up’ for her to try on. Nothing. In the dressing room, she almost felt giddy. This was quite an experience, what had Sally done to her during their lunch? The dress fit like it had been made especially for her, looking in the mirror she saw how beautiful she looked. It accented all the right places and her tan made the dress look even better. What she noticed most was that she felt happy with this particular dress on. Most times, clothes were just a necessity, to keep you warm or cool depending on the weather. But this dress was different, it made her feel happy. As luck would have it, the dress was sporting a blue tag which meant it was half off the already ridiculous low price. Putting on her normal clothes, Calli almost skipped to the checkout line, this dress was the perfect one to wear to the wedding this weekend. She wondered if Jim would like it. There was a little flutter in her heart when she considered whether or not he’d like her in this dress. Something is happening and it actually feels good. I do believe that my heart chakra is opening up again and that I might be almost ready to love again. She laughed at herself, now I’m believing that I have a heart chakra! I think that’s what Sally called it. I’ll have to ask her tomorrow. With the dress paid for, she headed home, anxious to hang this one up in her closet. The closet was becoming the place where she noticed that she was changing, not just the clothes she was wearing, but changing inside. And because the inside was changing, the clothes she wore on the outside were reflecting that change. Life is becoming more interesting, I wonder what my next adventure will be?