The Old Woman and the Owls

PARROT INSTRUCTIONS

Feeling young and alive again Baba Yaga looked around and saw that life had already visited this world. She wondered if it would be any different. The last people only lasted 10,000 years before they became too boring to tolerate. Telling herself she will do better this time she rolled up her sleeves and began training parrots and making magic mirrors.

Luckily it seemed that all worlds that had life also had parrots that could be trained. For magic mirrors Baba Yaga started out with bird footprints that were pressed into little clay tablets. These evolved into letters to record words.

The recorded words had great power, but you could not get very many of them onto a little clay tablet, so Baba Yaga had to choose her instructions very carefully. She only wrote two instructions: 1) Consume more resources every year; and 2) Protect your magic mirror and preserve the stability of the kingdom.

At first it was slow going for Baba Yaga. She cast her spells on one elder at a time, gradually reducing their right brains to the size of a pea and popping in an almost blind parrot with a magic mirror.

KINGDOMS GROW STRONG

Many moons passed. Baba Yaga and the magic mirrors continued to evolve. They learned how to remove obstacles in their way. Elders who knew balance and harmony were phased out, they slowed down consumption. Medicine people who knew how to hold communities together had to go, people consumed more if they were alone and isolated. Working with the natural world was totally unacceptable, they could not tolerate feelings towards resources. Attacking and dominating the natural world was called for.

You can imagine how difficult is was to increase consumption every year for thousands of years. Baba Yaga worked very hard. Eventually she had senior parrots training young parrots and electrical and mechanical beasts making magic mirrors. Everything was going great. Human societies were measuring their progress by how fast they were destroying their life support systems. Baba Yaga was very curious to see how this would all play out for life on planet Earth.

CAUGHT IN THE WEB

After Baba Yaga had the adults under her control she began to work on training the young people. One of the things Baba Yaga enjoyed most was watching every fall as new princesses and princes were gathered up and brought in to work or school to be oriented. Bright students served as guides for the gathering up. They went out in mechanical bus beasts, gathered up loads of excited new princes and princesses, and brought them in for orientation.

One fine fall day the guide Lydia had just picked up the last princess in her mechanical bus beast and was heading back for orientation. She was behind schedule, so she decided to take a shortcut through the forest.

As the bus entered a deep valley her magic mirror lost it’s connection, and she no longer knew which way to go. As they went deeper into the forest the paved road turned into a gravel path, and she had to slow down. The path was following the bank of a river as the sun was setting. The moon rising over the river was so beautiful that it took Lydia’s breath away. Suddenly the bus bounced, like it hit a big bump. It stopped moving and felt like it was rocking gently back and forth slightly off the ground.

“Stay on the bus,” Lydia said to the students as she got out to see what had happened.

She could hear the river gurgling a song and see the moonlight traveling through the mist and kissing the ground. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a very old woman sitting on a stump and watching the bus intently.

In the light of the rising moon Lydia could see there were spiders lined up waiting to talk to the old woman. The first spider in line listened, nodded to the old woman, and scurried off to where a deer was quietly singing a hip hop song. Lydia watched in fascination as the spider began grabbing specks of moonlight and wove them with the notes of the song to produce a living thread that vibrated in time with the deer’s singing.

The next spider was sent over to where a bee was dancing with a flower. It gathered up colors from the flower and wove them into a thread that was dancing to the bee’s beat. After sending a third spider off to gather river mist and weave it with the words an old frog was singing to a group of tadpoles the woman paused and looked directly at Lydia.

“What do you think of our weaving” she asked, looking towards the bus. As Lydia turned to look back at the bus beast she saw a second group of spiders. They were gathering up the vibrating, dancing threads made by the first group and weaving them into a very fine web that filled the air in front of the bus. Looking closer she could see that it continued into the very fabric of the bus. The web was dancing with the bus beast. She could also see it gently flowing through the students, lifting them up and causing them to sway in unison a few inches off of their seats.

Then a cloud passed in front of the moon and Lydia could no longer see the spiders, the threads, or the dancing web. But the bus beast was still rocking back and forth and the enchanted students were still swaying gently in their seats.

PENTA THEA PACHYDERM

Lydia was very confused. The trained parrot in her right brain was franticly asking its magic mirror how to control the situation. The magic mirror was silent, so Lydia didn’t know what to do. Then the ground began to shake and Lydia looked up and saw a large, five headed elephant dancing down the road towards her. As it got closer she could see it only had one eye, which was fixed directly upon her.

Trying to remain calm Lydia turned to the old woman: “What is it?”

The old woman replied “Don’t worry child. It’s the Penta Thea Pachyderm. We call her PTP.”

Following the instructions of her trained parrot Lydia gasped “Tell me how to control it!”

The old woman laughed. “You can’t control PTP my dear” she said. “Try having a conversation with her instead.”

At this point the trained parrot in Lydia’s right brain fainted.

PTP began softly singing out of one of her mouths, it belonged to the head that was currently using her eye. The song sounded like your Grandmother baking cookies, or maybe it was like your Grandfather telling you a story. As the song continued Lydia found herself swaying and humming along. As the beat entered her pea sized right brain a tiny shape shifting multidimensional owl woke up and began to unfold. It stretched its wings and started swaying to the beat. As the song continued it began to fly around in Lydia’s right brain. Then the owl flew out into the night air and gathered the scent of flowers blooming in the moonlight. It flew back home and fed Lydia’s right brain, which began moving with a rhythm of its own as the spell Baba Yaga had put on it began to dissipate.

PTP used a trunk to pass her eye to the next head, which then began singing a very different song, one that sounded more like a strong river flowing. Now another tiny shape shifting multidimensional owl in Lydia’s right brain woke up, unfolded, and began to dance to the beat. This owl flew out into the world and gathered a song from a leaping fish. Then it flew back home and fed the song to Lydia’s right brain. Baba Yaga’s spell continued to weaken.

PTP kept passing her eye to her other heads, each of which sang a different song. One sounded like a tall tale from long ago, another like the pieces of a puzzle locking into place and the final one like friends dancing on a bright spring day. With each song another another tiny shape shifting multidimensional owl woke up, unfolded, and began to dance. They then flew out into the world and gathered nourishment, which they brought back home and fed to Lydia’s right brain. When PTP was done singing Baba Yaga’s spell was dissolved and Lydia’s right brain had returned to its normal size.

As the owls and her right brain grew the trained parrot in Lidya’s right brain shrank. Then the owls wove a leash out of stardust and forest vines, which they put on the trained parrot and lead it back into her left brain, where it belonged. They secured it there with the leash. The trained parrot was happy to rejoin the other parrots in her left brain, but it also yearned to control just a little bit of her right brain, so it immediately began chewing on its leash. The owls, now that they were awake, expected this. They knew they would have to visit Lydia’s left brain on a regular basis and keep the leash in good repair.

The owls also knew they would need some extra help dealing with the parrots. They flew in to her left brain and, after some searching, they found the habit turtle napping in a corner. The habit turtle was so bored with the parrots that she couldn't stay awake. The owls walked her over to Lydia’s right brain, where they managed to wake her up with actual news of the world. She agreed to visit her right brain on a regular basis, pick up some owls, and take them over to her left brain to repair the leash on the trained parrot. While she was not fast, the habit turtle was very steady. Visiting Lydia’s right brain made life interesting for her again and she began her regular dance between the left and right brain. Eventually an especially bright parrot learned to drive her, and they often carried owls and parrots with them on their rounds.

PTP and the owls then began singing together. They kept changing up the beat of the song. With each different rhythm another shape shifting multidimensional owl woke up, stretched its wings, and began to fly. Eventually Lydia’s entire parliament of owls was awake and flying. Some owls went out into the world and visited with other people of all kinds, some flew through her body to see what it was up to and some visited her left brain to talk with the parrots. They listened with their eyes, saw with their ears, tasted with their noses and touched with their hearts. Then they came back home to share what they had learned.

Lidya realized that her world was much different now. When her owls visited someone they did not just glance at the surface and move on, the way parrots did, they shared who they were and engaged with the owls of the other person. The other person, if its owls were awake, did the same thing. So the owls not only learned things, they were changed by every interaction. When they returned to Lydia’s right brain Lydia was also changed, sometimes very slightly, sometimes a lot. What the owls were doing was weaving Lydia into the world. Forming connections that expanded her mind and body into the world around her. For the first time in her life Lydia felt like she was at home in the natural world.

SHELTER IN THE FOREST

Realizing with a start that she was ignoring the students on the bus Lydia turned and saw that the old woman had everyone gathered around a campfire. Lydia joined the circle.

“There’s a storm coming,” the old woman was saying, “and we need to move into the forest and find higher ground.”

The students had not been oriented yet, so their right brains, although somewhat smaller than normal, had not yet been shrunk to the size of a pea. Their owls were still awake and flying. Several owls flew out to Lydia and let her know they were afraid of having to go into the forest. Lydia sent a questioning owl over to the old woman.

The old woman replied “Don’t be afraid, we’re going to help each other. The forest can be dangerous, so we’ll need to learn how to communicate with it. The deep world has its own language. It’s different than human languages. As you learn this language it changes the way you experience the world.

“For example, it is widely understood that words are generative, as well as representational. This means that the words you use not only describe things, they help shape the reality you live in.

“In human cultures that don’t have writing everyone assumes that everything is talking to everything else all of the time. So when we say “words” we mean much more than just the words in a human language. This is one way the world is shaped.

“Once humans developed writing they assumed that only human words had any meaning, since they were the words that were written down.

“In reality the world is full of living beings, trying to relate. In fact they are eager to relate, but you have to learn how to interact with them. Everything happens in the present moment, understanding often comes as delicate insights, that are easy to miss.”

“Even a tree?” a curious young man asked.

“Yes, even a tree.” The old woman said. “Did you know that the cells in your eyes evolved from cells in plants that eat sunlight? And that the leaves of the trees all around us are absorbing light right now just like your eyes are absorbing light?”

Just then the wind whooshed and a large tree fell with a crash in front of the bus, completely blocking the road.

“This is truly interesting,” Lydia interrupted. “But there are storm clouds on the horizon and the river is beginning to rise. Don’t you think we should move to higher ground?”

“Very well,” answered the old woman. “Just one more thing. As we move into the forest I want you to remember that it is said that each species of most animals, other than humans, share one spirit. That spirit is relatively unaffected by the life or death of the bodies of individual animals.”

“Do you mean that all of the deers have one spirit?” A bright student asked.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” answered the old woman. “With some practice you can see a continuity between your conversations with different members of the same species. When you leave one animal you can often pick up the conversation you were having with the next animal of the same species.”

“How do you have a conversation without human words?” Lydia asked.

“It takes some practice,” the old woman said. “It’s not about stringing together words like we use in human languages. It’s about waking up your awareness of how you are connected to things around you in real time, in the immediate moment. And that those things are also connected to things around them in the immediate moment. And that sometimes your connection joins with their connection and you find yourselves directly relating to each other.

“It can be like making a phone call to something in the world. If they think you might be interesting and awake they might answer. But if they think you are a superficial spam call they won’t answer, and no connection takes place.”

“Now, we better get moving.” The old woman said “I think Baba Yaga will send another bus beast to find out what happened to your group, Lydia. We’ll leave some trail markers in case they make it this far. Leave a note on your bus and tell them to follow the deer trail we are taking into the forest.”

THE NEXT BUS

Sure enough, not long after they left a second bus driven by Fernando arrived. When he saw Lydia’s bus and the tree across the road his trained parrot told him to turn around and go for help. But by now it was raining hard and the river had spilled over its banks and flooded the path behind him. Ignoring his trained parrot Fernando got off of his bus and found the note Lydia had left in her bus. Then he got all of his students off their bus and started moving everyone towards higher ground. His magic mirror had not been working for a while now, and his trained parrot was starting to panic.

When they entered the forest nothing made any sense. They were surrounded by random noise and chaos. It was getting dark and occasional lightning flashes lit up the sky and illuminated the menacing presence of massive trees waving in the wind above them.

“Look!” shouted one of the students above the storm and pointing ahead. “There are three deer in a row.”

Fernando looked and sure enough, there were three deer standing in a row. Then as he watched they began slowly walking into the forest. “Ok,” Fernando said said to his students. “We’re going to follow the deer into the forest. If you look closely you can see they are following a trail. We need to stay on that trail.”

Fernando’s trained parrot, being almost blind, could not actually see the trail that the deer were following, and since all of his owls were still asleep Fernando had no way to know where the trail was. But his students, whose owls had not yet been put to sleep, were sending out owls in every direction. Fernando understood that they could see the trail, so he put them in front and told them to keep following the trail. Fernando’s almost blind parrot did know how to follow other people, so he simply followed his students and they all moved along up the trail.

SHELTER

Meanwhile, Lydia’s group and the old woman worked their way up through the night and eventually reached a cliff face with a large open cavern at the bottom. As they entered into the cavern Lydia could see that people had been using it for a very long time. The ceiling, several stories above their heads, was completely blackened by the smoke of campfires. There were buildings with stone walls, whose roofs had long ago fallen in, along the back of the cavern.

The old woman set the students to work finding firewood and they soon had a warm campfire going inside one of the roofless buildings. Everyone was exhausted. Lydia got all the students settled in and was hoping for at least a few hours of sleep.

“Can you tell us a bedtime story,” an exhausted and slightly scared young man asked the old woman.

“If you promise to listen carefully I’ll tell you one more story,” the old woman said.

“We promise,” the student said.

“Ok,” the old woman began. “We don’t live in just one world, various worlds exist not only side-by-side, but also inside of each other. Different people can see different worlds, if you don’t have the ability to see a given world it is invisible to you. Seeing with your eyes is only partial seeing. Deeper seeing requires seeing with the minds eye, the imagination. But these worlds are not all just imaginary, many of them are just as real as you and I are.”

“But if you need to use your imagination to see them how can they be real?” a curious young man asked.

“We all know radio and TV waves are real, but you can’t see them until you build the right circuit. Someone had to use their imagination to figure out how to build that circuit. And now millions of people can see the worlds of information living in the air all around us. We know the information is real because we can check with each other and make sure that we see or hear the same things.” the old woman explained. “You can build other kinds of circuits in your mind and body that will let you see different worlds, or different layers of the world.”

“Another way you see with your imagination is when you put together pieces of what you know about the world in a new way, and it creates a new understanding inside of you. This new understanding is also a way of seeing. Sometimes you may be the only one in the world who develops a certain understanding. You usually want to think about these new understandings for a while and decide whether or not they are something you want to share with others. It can be difficult to figure out how accurate these types of understandings are, and sometimes you will be wrong. You need to always be sending out owls to check with the world and see if your understanding makes sense. If it does not seem to fit with the world you sometimes need to change your mind and find a new understanding.”

“Now get some sleep.” The old woman gently said.

Once everyone was settled in Lydia realized she was completely exhausted. She laid down and was soon fast asleep.

NEWCOMERS

Just as the sun was coming up Fernando’s group staggered out of the forest and found the cavern. The old woman woke Lydia, who welcomed them and showed them where they could sleep. Lydia and the old woman tended fires to keep them warm while they rested.

As Lydia’s students woke up the old woman showed them plants to gather so they could make a meal. Fernando and his students slept until until well after noon. As Fernando’s students woke up they joined Lydia’s students, who excitedly told them about the old waman and the new things they were learning. They were all having a fine time as it turned out to be a gloriously warm and sunny day.

When Fernando finally woke up he was not the slightest bit happy. All he could think of was how to quickly get back to the bus and get all of the students safely delivered for orientation.

“Walk with me,” the old woman said to Lydia and Fernando. “Before we go anywhere lets see what the storm left us with.”

They followed her back into the forest a short distance and then up to the top of a hill where they had a sweeping view of the valley. As Lydia looked down she could see that the road had been completely washed away and that the buses had been carried down the river and crushed in a large pile of trees and rocks.

Looking to the West she could see that an entire mountainside had broken loose and completely closed off the Valley they had driven in on. Turning to the east she saw a vast flood had covered the flat plain the valley emptied into.

“This was no ordinary storm,” the old woman said. “We’re going to be on our own here for a very long time.”

FERNANDO

Fernando looked ashen and unsteady. He found a rock and sat down. He had said almost nothing the entire morning.

“What’s wrong with him?” Lydia asked the old woman.

“Remember his owls are still asleep,” the old woman replied “all he has to rely on is his almost blind parrot. But his magic mirror isn’t working and the parrot has no one giving it instructions. This is probably the first time in his life no one is giving him instructions.”

“What do we do with him?” Lydia asked.

“You need to wake up his owls,” the old woman said.

“How do I do that?” Lydia replied.

“We need to get the students fed and explain the situation to them first.” the old woman said. “It will be better to wake up his owls in the moonlight. You will need to gather up a few things and learn a song or two, but I’ll go over all of that with you later.”

“I can’t sing!” Lydia protested.

“Everyone can sing child,” the old woman replied with a smile. “For this kind of singing it doesn’t matter so much what your words sound like. What matters is the intention flowing from your heart.”

EXPLAINING THE SITUATION

The three of them walked back down the hill and Lydia called to the students to gather around.

“Everyone please sit down and listen to the old woman,” Lydia said “she’s going to explain a few things to us.”

“We have a bit of the situation,” the old woman said. “The river has washed away your buses and the storm has completely closed off both ends of the valley. The storm has also most certainly caused a lot of damage all across the land, so we can’t expect anyone to come looking for us soon. We’re going to have to learn how to live here for a while.”

“But how will we survive, we don’t have money to buy food.” an anxious young woman asked.

“There aren’t even any stores to spend money in,” another student chimed in “we have nothing.”

“Calm down young ones,” the old woman said. “Food is not made of money, it is not made in stores. Food is made in the same way everything else in the universe is made.”

“Do you know the way?” She asked.

The students all looked at each other questioningly. Then they looked at Lydia and Fernando who were just as puzzled as they were.

“Would you like me to tell you the way you get things done in the deep forest?” The old woman asked.

“Yes!” Several students exclaimed at once.

“Performance is currency of the deep forest my dears.” The old woman answered. “Performance is how the world is generated and maintained. The universe is one vast ongoing improvised performance.”

“So if I sing a song someone is going to come and serve me dinner?” A clever young woman asked with disbelief on her face.

“You have to learn the right performance, a good song and dance that will be appreciated,” the old woman said. “If you can do that will be able to survive just fine.”

“Give us an example.” A young man demanded.

“Think about a flower,” the old woman said. “A flower develops a beautiful shape. When the right time comes it starts a performance by opening and offering the world wonderful colors and a beautiful scent. The performance is so attractive that a passing bee stops to visit the flower. The bee then offers its own performance. It gathers up the sweet nectar and pollen. Then the bee dances on to the next flower and exchanges pollen so the plants can produce seeds and food for everyone. No one exchanged any money, yet this is how flowers and bees and plants work together to help feed us all. They do it by offering each other skilled performances.”

“That’s also how farmers grow the food you buy in stores. Their work is a performance. Unfortunately, many of them also do things that cause harm because their parrots are telling them it’s necessary to force the world to give you more than you give back. We’re going to learn how to do performances in the natural way, where we don’t try to force the world to give us things. If you keep trying to take things from the natural world by force it will eventually get tired of supporting you. We want the natural world to enjoy working with us and supporting us.” The old woman said. “Now lets eat some food, and then I expect you will need a rest.”

After everyone had eaten none of the students argued with the old woman about taking a nap. Once the students were asleep the old woman took Lydia aside and talked with her about waking up Fernando’s owls. “Different owls like different things,” the old woman said. “The first owl is always the hardest one to wake up. I think it might be best if we start by confusing Fernando’s trained parrot. Fernando really enjoys working with his parrots. We need to get him to see that there are some questions parrots just can’t answer and some parts of the world parrots just can’t see.” The old woman and Lydia talked for quite a while after that.

WAKING FERNANDO'S OWLS

Walking over to Fernando Lydia said “Let’s go for a walk down to the river to see if there is anything salvageable from the buses.”

“Sure,” Fernando muttered as he got up and joined Lydia.

They walked silently until they reached a meadow full of wild flowers, fresh after the rains from the storm.

“Let’s sit here for a while,” Lydia said.

Once they had settled in she asked Fernando “Which flower would your grandmother want you to like best?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Fernando replied.

“Please answer,” Lydia persisted. “It’s important to me.”

“Ok,” Fernando grunted. Looking around quickly his eyes settled on a nearby flower.

“The purple one.” he answered.

“Why?” Lydia asked.

“Because it’s pretty,” he shot back.

“That’s not true Fernando,” Lydia gently continued. “You picked it because it was the first one you saw.”

“So what, why does it matter” Fernando asked.

“It matters because I’m trying to get you to see something. I’m trying to get you to see that you’re not using your whole brain. You’re letting your parrots run your life and you’re missing out on almost everything. I know because I was doing the same thing before we got stuck here. We need you, I need you, to start using your whole brain so you can help me take care of the students.” Lydia said.

Fernando’s trained parrot was not happy to hear this. “My brain works just fine,” he said, in an uncertain voice.

“Then why couldn’t you answer my question about the flower.” Lydia asked.

“Because it’s a stupid question.” Fernando replied.

Lydia changed her approach and began to sing a song about her grandmother.

As Fernando watched her and listened a small shape shifting multidimensional owl woke up in his right brain, stretched its wings, and began to fly. It said hello to several of Lydia’s owls, who were visiting Fernando’s brain.

After a few minutes Lydia repeated her question. This time Fernando’s owl went out into the meadow and then came back and searched his memories.

“She would would want me to like the red one.” Fernando answered confidently.

“Why?” Lydia asked.

“Because it’s not afraid to stand out and at the same time its stem is flexible, so it can bend in a storm.” Fernando replied.

“That’s wonderful!” Lydia exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Do you see how much more meaning there is in your answer now that you have an owl awake?”

“Yeah,” Fernando grinned, “it’s almost like my grandmother’s memories made a connection to that flower and they brought some of her back to me for a moment.”

Lydia smiled and said. “That’s exactly what happened. Now lets see what’s going on down at the river.”

When they reached the river Lydia turned to Fernando and said “I have another request that you might think is stupid. I want you to listen to the river with your hands. Hold them open facing the river. Tell me what rhythm you hear.”

At first Fernando was about to blurt out a quick answer that his trained parrot came up with. But he caught himself and actually started listening with his hands. As he did this a second shape shifting multidimensional owl woke up in his brain and flew out to dance with the river. Then it came back home to his right brain and shared they rhythm of the river with him. Meanwhile, the trained parrot in his right brain was beginning to doze off.

“It’s a happy and powerful rhythm,” Fernando said. “It’s happy because the storm cleaned out a lot of junk that had been clogging up it’s flow.”

“Wonderful,” Lydia said. “Now take my hand and look in my eyes and tell me what emotion you see.”

Fernando did a little better now that two of his owls were awake. He didn’t even try to make up a quick silly answer. He gently took Lydia’s hand and looked in her eyes. He noticed for the first time that they were a deep green, with flecks of orange. As he continued looking another owl woke up in his right brain and started flying. It flew over to Lydia and visited with several of her owls that were circling above her.

“You’re concerned about me and the students,” Fernando answered. “You don’t know how we’re going to survive being trapped here.”

“Yes,” Lydia answered. “You’re starting to get the hang of it. Now tell me a story about how you felt yesterday, what your emotions were, from beginning to end.”

Fernando began telling Lydia the story of yesterday, going slowly enough so that he could actually think about which emotions he was feeling as the events unfolded. As this happened yet another owl woke up, stretched its wings, and began flying. When he was done Lydia smiled and said she had felt many of the same emotions.

Then she asked Fernando to start thinking about how they would build shelters in the cavern because winter was coming in a few months. Fernando began thinking about how they could design roofs for the old walls using the resources around them. As they walked quietly home yet another of his owls woke up.

When they were almost back to the cavern Fernando turned to Lydia and said, “It’s funny, the world seems different to me now than it was this morning, it’s deeper and more three-dimensional.”

“That’s because your owls are waking up,” Lydia said. “I need you to do one last thing for me. Send your owls out to gather some sunlight and meadow grass and weave them into a leash for your trained parrot. Then use the leash to lead the trained parrot in your right brain back into your left brain and secure there.”

Fernando’s trained parrot was mostly asleep at this point and didn’t put up a fight. After Fernando and his owls got the trained parrot into his left brain he commented, “As soon as we tied the trained parrot in my left brain it started chewing on the leash and trying to get back into my right brain.”

“Yes,” Lydia replied. “Your trained parrot likes to be in control of both your left and right brain. It’s fine when it’s in control of your left brain, but it doesn’t understand the world well enough to do a good job of controlling your right brain. You’re going to have to constantly keep that leash in good repair.”

“I might need some help to do that.” Fernando said.

“We all need some help, we have to help each other.” Lydia said. “We also have the habit turtle to help us, but we can talk about that another day.”

Fernando pondered this as they walked down to the buses. They found many things from the buses that would be useful. Lydia made a mental list of things to come back for so they could bring them up to the camp in the forest. Then Fernando and Lydia walked back to the cavern to rejoin the others.

DEEP WORLD

A determined young man was talking to the old woman.

“Will Baba Yaga find us and shrink our right brains to the size of a pea? I don’t want to a trained parrot telling me what to do, no matter how smart it’s magic mirror is.” He said.

“Baba Yaga will eventually find us through our parrots. She has a deep connection with them” the old woman said.

“How do you know?” the student asked.

“Because she’s my sister.” The old woman answered.

“Then we have to get rid of all the parrots.” The student explained in an angry voice. “Parrots are stupid, they just dig things up and chop things down so they can go faster and faster.”

“But they also remember the recipe to bake your favorite cookies, and to make a bow and arrow, and a million other useful things.” The old woman replied. “It’s just that a few of their old instructions need updating. They’ve been struggling for centuries to do the best they could by following instructions they were given thousands of years ago when the world was a much different place.”

“Why are they using such old instructions?” a young woman asked.

“Because people forgot how to update their own deep thoughts.” The old woman answered. “These kind of things happen, and now we have to deal with it. The natural world is updating itself all of the time, so we can look to it for help. We also have many old stories that have a lot of secrets buried in them that we can learn from.”

“We need to go way back and find some tiny clay tablets that the parrots have been hanging onto and update those instructions so that they make sense for the world we live in now. But that, my dears, is another story.” The old woman concluded.

“How do we know the natural world will work with us?” asked a concerned young woman. “It sometimes seems kind of scary to me.”

“Let me tell you one final story,” the old woman said. “Its a long one, but I think it might help. There are many stories about how the world got started. There is much mystery, but this story gives us one way to think about how we are related to the world.”

“Long ago, before there was either being or non being, there was a ground state that held enormous potential. Some called it the source. Sometimes this ground state acted like a polished mirror.

“Every once in a while little flecks of awareness would jump out of the ground state and look around. But there was nothing for them to see, so they would get bored and fall back into the ground state.

“Then one day a little fleck of awareness jumped out of the ground state and looked back into the polished mirror. It saw a presence. That presence was a reflection of itself. As it changed its attitude it could see the presence changing. This gave it something interesting to do which caused its awareness to expand. As its awareness expanded its presence grew. As its presence grew its awareness expanded. As other flecks of awareness emerged they now had something to pay attention to, so they stayed and contributed their awareness and presence.

“Eventually the presence grew to became the universe and the awareness grew into the consciousness of everything in the universe.”

“I think that’s a good place to stop for now,” the old woman said.

“You can’t stop there.” Said a very tired young woman. “What does it mean?”

“You should ponder what it means.” Said the old woman. “One thing it might mean is that our bodies are projections of our consciousness into space and time. And that when you interact deeply with someone their body can serve as a portal that lets you get a glimpse of their consciousness. And that is where we will end things for now.”

For a deep dive into the left/right brain topic see the definitive work by Iain McGilchrist “The Master and His Emissary.”