Theresa Crater

This time of year is always special to me, because of childhood memories of beeswax candles and Moravian Advent stars, carols and choir rehearsals, putting up the tree, Moravian ginger spice cookies.

Then there’s Solstice, the darkest night, the longest, when the sun is rekindled in the womb of the Dark Mother. Always the deepest darkness regenerates us, even though we fight to avoid it. But once we surrender, we too are renewed.

At Solstice, the sun stops sinking low in the sky and pauses. For three days it stays still. Then on Christmas Day, it begins to climb higher again.

Solstice and Christmas bring many things, but the thing I prize the most is the stillness. In stillness and silence, all can be found.

I’m honored to have a story included in the anthology Ride the Moon from the new Canadian science fiction/fantasy press Tyche Books, Ltd. Just look at this list of great writers.

My story is “White Moon,” based on the story of the Mayan Goddess Ixchel. Ixchel is a moon goddess, the consort of the sun god, mother of the four jaguar priests. And it’s the name of the mystery crystal skull that was revealed at the 11.11.11 conference in L.A where my own consort, Stephen Mehler, was a guest speaker. The story includes Mayan mythology, magic, crystal skulls and sound healing.

In her myth cycle, Ixchel marries Itzamna, the sun, but grows tired of his hot temper. When she leaves him, she goes to her island, Cozumel, where she lives among women as a midwife and healer. I took this theme of the ebb and flow of relationships, and the ebb and flow of human consciousness.

A special note:  if you find that you resemble a character in this story, remember not to read too much into it. This is not really you, but a character in a story written for fun.

Today is Mabon, the Fall Equinox. The day and night are equal. The sun rises due east and sets due west. This is the harvest of fruits. Lammas (August 1st) began the harvest season with harvesting grains. In Greece it was the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a major initiation. It’s also my granddaughter’s birthday, and she’s bringing us a new life next year!

I remember watching my grandmother and her daughters can during August and September. She had a wood stove, so this was quite an undertaking. Someone stoked the fire, another cleaned the jars, another put the jars in the big pot to sertilize them. Then others were cutting up vegetables or fruits, putting them in the pot to cook just a bit. Then there was getting it in the jars, a touchy business. My favorite was waiting for the tops to seal with a wonderful pop. I was very young then, always underfoot until Grandmother decided to put me to work keeping the fire in the stove burning. It was hot in that kitchen, before air conditioning.

It’s harvest time. Time to enjoy the fruits of your garden, trees, writing, work and life.

Mystery writer Steve Berry puts a section at the end of his books that talks about what’s real and what’s made up. Yes, mystery and fantasy  writers do research and use it in their novels. What we do with that research is sometimes made-up, but it’s the mix of the real and the imagined that makes for a compelling read.

In Beneath the Hallowed Hill, Megan attends an Emergence Ceremony at the age of thirteen to discover her place in Atlantean society. She travels with her parents to the Temple of the Oracle where she consults with a circle of crystal skulls.

Crystal skulls do exist. Crystal skull researcher Nick Nocerino classified three types of crystal skulls:  contemporary (less than 100 years old), old (more than 100 years old), and ancient (more than 1,000 years old). There are thousands of contemporary crystal skulls carved in Latin America and China predominantly.

But why? After all, the skull and cross bones is used to label poison. We think of them as representing evil. Mexican and Latin cultures use these skulls on the Day of the Dead and to meditate on death, but the Maya see these skulls as images of enlightenment.

Why enlightenment? Next time you’re in a crowd of people, look around at all the faces. Notice how different everyone is. Yes, we have two eyes, one nose and mouth, etc. (for the most part), but we all have particular features and are each different from the other. But imagine the bone beneath the face. Imagine the skull. They all look alike.

The skull represents this underlying sameness. It represents Divine Consciousness, that I Am presence that we all are at our very foundation.

Are there really ancient crystal skulls? We’ll talk about that in another post.

Max, the Texas skull. Picture taken by Stephen Mehler.

At the end of Under the Stone Paw, the characters who are carrying crystal keys go into the temple beneath the Sphinx and they all slip into a higher state of consciousness. I describe it this way: “Just as a river surrenders to the sea, all their limitations simply washed away. A door opened in their unified mind, an ancient door containing certain knowledge.”

At the beginning of Beneath the Hallowed Hill, Michael asks Anne if she misses being in that state of consciousness:  “In the temple, when we all merged, that moment of—” he searched for the right word, “—illumination.” Anne turned back to the road. Now they were driving through a tunnel of trees. “It was real, then.” Michael nodded.

All the spiritual traditions agree with Michael. Humans can experience enlightenment. When I was studying to become a meditation teacher, I learned a simple way to describe different states of consciousness in terms of the objective measurements of the physiology and the subjective
human experience. In other words, a physiologist could read our measurements in another room and know which state of consciousness we are likely experiencing.

Let’s start with the ones we’re most familiar with. In waking state, the brain expressed beta waves, our blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen consumption is at an active rate. Objectively, we experience what we call the real world, external reality.

In the sleeping state of consciousness, the brain goes into theta and delta waves. The heart rate slows, along with blood pressure and oxygen consumption. Objectively, we are not aware of anything. During dreams, the brain goes into alpha and the heart rate and other measurements can rise. We also experience rapid eye movement. Subjectively, we experience our own private movie. Humans don’t call this the real world, but
think of dreams as messages from our deeper selves. Of course, this can be more complicated, but for now, that’s enough.

Maharishi, my meditation teacher, talked about other states of awareness, starting with transcendental consciousness. This is that state we sometimes reach in mediation or listening to music or sitting in nature where the mind quiets down completely and merges with the larger divine consciousness that we are all an expression of. In this state, our brain waves are synchronous across the hemispheres, a very rare occurrence, and we experience alpha and theta waves. Our body’s activity slows to a deep state of rest. The breath rate slows and breathing is shallow. The heart beats very slowly. Yet subjectively, we are cmpletely awake, but the mind is quiet. We are not aware of anything. We become Awareness itself.

The purpose of meditation, contemplative prayer, and other spiritual practices is to reach a state in which this connection with the root  awareness of the universe is constantly there. We do not lose touch with it again. Our individual awareness floats like a small boat on top of the ocean of universal consciousness. Subjectively, we feel whole. What we need to know is delivered to us through that universal awareness. Our actions are in harmony with the laws of nature. Maharishi called this Cosmic Consciousness.

Many spiritual traditions discuss this state of consciousness. Rumi and the Sufis call the Divine Consciousness the Beloved and writes eloquently and poignantly of the human yearning to unite with the Divine Beloved. “A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed, cut holes in it, and called it a human being. Since then it has been wailing a tender agony of parting, never mentioning the skill that gave it life as a flute.” We yearn to reconnect.

Christ said, ‎”Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” Western metaphysics speaks of the individual consciousness climbing the Tree of Life like a snake (kundalini) and finally resting its head just beneath the Crown, the great I Am presence.

The spiritual traditions agree. Enlightenment is your birthright. That’s why I love exploring higher states of consciousness in ordinary humans in my novels.