"I put you both through the ringer. You helped me get out of debt and when I came home on leave...I sure did vent that pent up wild man. Women, party, and ... you put up with it, and then helped me get back to base in one piece. About pushed that old envelope to bust."

     "No not really."

     "Well tradition has it that it originated in Africa from a tribe that inhabited Central Africa near the Victoria Falls. As the legend goes an old chief was about to die so he asked to be placed in a canoe with some of his possessions that his rank deserved along with some food. He was set afloat and as he sailed down the river towards the falls his tribe sang a farewell chant for him. The legend says that at the moment when he was about to go over the falls he was seen to stand up in the canoe and get into a chariot that had descended from the mists to carry him away." 

     "Sounds about right. Do you know the words to that spiritual?" I asked my mother.

      "Sure do!" and in her sweet Irish brogue she recalled the words from her wonderful rich memory.

"Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan and what did I see,
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.

If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm a-coming' too,
Coming for to carry me home.

I'm sometimes up and sometimes down,
Coming for to carry me home;
But still my soul am heavenly bound,
Coming for to carry me home."

     "Sounds like an old slave song."

     "Well the chorus and maybe even the melody were brought to America by African slaves. Verses were added later when they came in contact with the Christian faith."

     We looked at the polar bears swimming in the pool. Their heads above the water line treading water then diving to swim the entire length of the pool without taking a breath. Then the bears flipped over underwater to swim back to the other side of their pool before breaking the waters surface. I thought of the words to the spiritual as I stood there.

                                                      A band of angels coming after me,
                                                         Coming for to carry me home.

      We watched the polar bears swim back and forth in their pool then my mother asked me:

     "Have you seen it on the news Daniel; the Russians are going hungry and the Chinese are running out of fresh water. Don't hear much about Africa on the news anymore but it seems to me and your father that the world is spinning out of control.... good that you helped keep Americans safe because the world is looking pretty rough these days." My mother looked at me with that same expression of concern on her face that she had whenever I would come home on leave; 'wild as a hatter with a bottle of J. D. in my hands' and some gal I had met in a bar that night.

     "Yes William Blake and his words are as true today as they were in his time. The world forgets that to 'live by the sword, you will eventually die by the sword', and that is as true today as it was when it was first said, only difference being that the weapons today are more lethal." They start to walk through the zoo again.

     "Yes son I am familiar with the strategy. While Russia starved we here in America thought the Soviet Union was the big bad bear about to devour us. Hell the Soviet Union was falling apart but we did not know that or if we did they went ahead anyway and made Russia the problem. The propaganda machines on both sides scared a lot of people for a long time son. The solution was an arms race that totally bankrupted the Soviet Union and made the world a dangerous place from then on."

     "Dad what time do you have."

     Looking at his pocket watch he then looked at me with a serious expression, not saying a thing for a moment, then slowly: "These are the times that try men's souls Daniel...it's 11:56-57 and ticking."

     Sitting now on a wrought iron bench now we watched the colorful birds flying in the large outdoor aviary. My father's relationship to time was unique. Seemed to me over the years that what he was really doing was equating time to history and...much needed social change on the planet. My mother broke the silence as we sat there looking at the birds. "Thomas Paine wrote those words in 1776." My father looked at my mother smiling... It was the right time to tell them.  

     "I feel them now on my back and arms."

     "Oh son that's wonderful, and right on time."

     "Have you told anyone?"

     "No dad, not the kind of thing you can just talk to people about."

      My father nods solemnly saying: "I understand."

     "Where on your arms son?" my mother asked.

     "Between the biceps and triceps, that's the pulse message center, upon the shoulder blades that's where the flight center is located."

     "That's it son, you have come of age. Please, again, keep this to yourself, they will only conspire against you otherwise. Unfortunately we are a much misunderstood species on the planet today. The genetic wiring of Angelica has been in place for eternity and it is unfolding  now on the planet earth..."

     After a moment or two: "But there are those who would kill this unfolding because of their own deeply seeded misunderstandings about us."

     "It is happening around the world now as if a race against time. I can feel it, the world's people want food, water, peace and jobs, not our politicians and governments wars. The race with the devil is on I'm afraid, pray the finish is to higher ground Daniel."

     My mother looked at me, then turned to watch the birds flying about in the outdoor aviary. She asked me: "your dreams Daniel, are they speaking to you now? but before you answer my question tell us the rules of Angelica dreams sharing."

     "Never tell a dream that did not occur, never add or take from the dream shared and only add to the dream when dreaming."

     "Very good. What can you share with us."

     "It was the weekend for the S.C. Trojans and U. of O. Ducks football game. A big weekend in Eugene. We proceeded out on to the town that night before the game in the eternal hopes of meeting some wild, yet proper women. We had a fine evening as it turned out, singing songs, meeting some nice people and all was well really. The three of us returned to our motel, the Excelsior, about 10:00 that night to turn in. While asleep I had this dream. There they were, the musicians John and Paul, you remember them? sure. He is with John behind a thin veil or curtain. Holding John's bloodied head in his arms, they did not seem deterred by the situation, rather were engrossed in their conversation as they looked out at something. I saw them in my dream vision, feeling sorry for John... then ever so slowly I realized..." 

     The three of us sat there looking at the birds flying about in their large aviary as I continued again to share my last few days experience with my parents.. 

     "That morning we got up, showered and went out to breakfast. I had a light breakfast, wheat toast, some orange juice, did not seem to have much of an appetite for some reason. After breakfast we went back to our motel to get ready for the game. As we were leaving walking through the parking lot we see this person walking by us using a cell phone in one hand and his other hand in his jacket pocket. We made eye contact with him then as in the blink of an eye a white Acura pulled into the parking lot. As the man turned to see the car I noticed a young women sitting in the passenger seat. She looked right at me and for an instant, I thought I knew her. Then in the next moment the man bolted out of the parking lot. We figured it was a sting happening around us and got out of there. Anyway we went on to the game and watched the Ducks totally dominate the first half of the game.  At half time I got a call on my cell but no one spoke on the other end... just sat on line saying nothing. The second half the Trojans dismantled the Ducks in an amazing turn of events. I was astounded, as I was pulling for the Ducks, to see the Trojans just take a wrecking ball to the Ducks.

     "That night we went to see a movie, 'The Shipping News'. It was a good movie and had this great soundtrack with drums and a baroque sounding sopranino recorder. Early the next morning my buddies left town heading back to Portland and I headed out for Los Angeles. As I drove south the drums and recorder kept playing in my mind. Last night after my arrival here and visiting with you both I retired to my room and soon after laying down I fell into a deep sleep. I dreamt I was composing a piece of music full of drums and the haunting recorder I had heard in the movies soundtrack, it was like a wall of sound. And like the many sides of a crystal, the events and even the possibilities of my life were illumined in my dreams."

     We looked at the birds and did not speak for several minutes. 

     "Your astral body has become receptive to your guardian angel" Clara Bell said still looking at the birds.

     "Yes I know." 

     As we sat there I notice a red headed woman pushing a baby stroller with a small child in it pass by slowly.  Shortly after words several park employees walked by on their way to the large outdoors chimpanzees cage.  As they passed out of sight we heard the chimpanzees getting louder. Their 12:30 feeding evoked a loud response from them. As if they read the position of the sun or their handlers minds the chips screaming only escalated with their  keepers approach and providing them with a fan fare of yells and shrieks. 

     We got up and walked to the reptile house. Since my childhood I loved to see the two headed garter snake collection. The snakes seemed to know when my family arrived in the house. We always got both heads attention. As we stood looking at the snakes like we had done so many times before over the years, my mother magically added to the zoo's two headed snake collection. Giving a head to a snake that just a moment before had only one, hidden away in it's genetics, dormant was the high point of our visits. It was a fun game we had played in the reptile collection of the zoo since I was 10 years old.  

     "One more for the collection I like to think" my mother said as we looked at the newest member of the famous reptilian family. "Mutation magic, so easy with the reptilian brain. Does keep the zoo staff on their toes if you know what I mean" my mother said laughing as we walked through the exhibit. 5 minutes later we exited the zoo and walked back to our car.

     As we drove along Los Felis Boulevard I realized how much I loved my parents. My father had often shared with me the joy he had experienced as a child running in the fields as a child of 10 in his ancestral homeland of the Black Forrest woods. He said he could still remember the thick pine trees and running streams, that he could still remember the smells and sounds filling the air... Then like a hail storm soldiers arrived in his quiet valley and started forcing entire families into the service of the German army. The German - Jewish families were no longer welcome in paradise. They had few choices. Volunteer for hypothermia experiments or dig underground tunnels, so after 200 years of residency in the deep forests and valleys my father and his family fled like gypsies in the night to Holland, never again to return. 20 years later my father Stanley Changling was the first member of his family to immigrate to the United States of America.

     Entering the driveway I notice rain drops on the windshield of my parents car. What had been a cool, yet sunny day, was now an overcast rainy Southern California afternoon. The house seemed smaller to me as I walked up to the front door of the modest Tudor styled brick house. Next to the house was a small brick building built in a cuckoo clock motif with a sign over the door that read Black Forrest Cuckoos and Glassware. 

     Once inside the house we were greeted by the songs of my parents zebra finches which they raised. "Time for some rose hip and echinacea tea to warm the soul from the grip of the cold afternoon" my mother said as she walked into the kitchen. I sat in my parents comfortable living room and looked out to their back yard patio. Raining lightly now I noticed that my father has made some lotus lily shaped glass rain catches of primarily red, yellow and blue colors and set them on the patio. The dozen colorful, lily shaped, glass bowls surrounded a translucent white alabaster marble statuette of a kneeling angel, holding a large sea shell at it's feet, though they were not visible, to also catch the rain. The angel was about three feet tall, the sea shell bowl was also about two foot in diameter. The water drops falling into the shell catch and the 12 lily, colored glass bowls, about 6 inches in diameter, created the appearance of a changing and yet timeless place far removed from where he now sat. I fell into a mild trance looking at them as I seemed to melt in my parents warm house. 

     "Florence, Italy" his father said.

     "What dad?"

     "The angel rain catch is made of alabaster quarried just outside Florence, Italy. I bought it when your mother and I took a vacation to Italy several years ago."

     "Oh yes I remember that...it's a fine piece."

     Looking back at the catches he sees that the rain is falling hard. In the angel catch the drops begin to look like spears jumping up from the bowl with each rain drops collision. Sharp pointed missiles or spears rising from the falling rain drops. He watches them for awhile before turning to his father.

     "Is that what you see coming dad?"

     His father did not reply. Together they watched the rain falling into and splashing out into the catches as the afternoon turned gray . Then his father turned to him and asked, 

     "Do you know what the greatest power in the universe is Daniel?"

      And before I could answer his question my father said: 'The love of a family for each other'. Nothing is greater. Sad isn't Daniel. The greatest power here on earth is replaced, subverted, with hate, children fighting wars and killing ....when really it's very simple. People want food on the table, someone or something to love in their life, something meaningful to do with our time here, that's all the human being really needs, the rest is just confused or misguided priorities really."    

     My mother walked into the room carrying a tray with a tea kettle, 3 cups and some strawberry jam and sliced brown bread. "That and the love of 'the family of man', don't you forget that Stanley Archer Changling, don't you forget that old 'family of man' out there."

As my mother poured the tea she explained: "I use only flower-buds just about to open for my rose hip tea, never the fully opened flowers and I have learned to gather them in dry weather only. Then I dry them until the petals are brittle to my touch packing them in tea tins to preserve their color and dryness. Funny, as soon as the rose hips are exposed to the air later on they absorb the moisture in the air and fade very fast."

     My mother the Irish woman says this while looking at the rain catches then turns to look at her men, after just the shortest of moments she turns to look out on the back yard patio and watches the rain drops falling into the catches again. 

     "Like waves on the rising seas, this love of 'the family of man' can carry us all into better worlds. Worlds here on God's green Earth that many people have never even imagined possible."

     The three of them watch the rain drops falling into the catches, the circular ripples expanding out full circle in all directions, like the pealing of clear bells ringing as we sat there sipping our rose hip and echinacea tea.

     That night after a light dinner the Changelings turned in for the night. As Daniel slept that night he had a dream that nearly threw him from his bed. He was sitting outside reading the paper when he looked up to admire the beautiful mornings weather. He caught something in his line of vision that when he looked closer seemed as if it was falling from the sky. As he watched the object picking up speed as it was falling to earth he could see that it was a missile...and it was heading straight for the yard where he was sitting. He got up from his chair in a panic and began to run around the yard in hopes of escaping its impact. The missile landed in the middle of the backyard where he had been sitting. It struck the earth,  burying about half it's length in the lawn standing at about a 45 degree angle and sticking about 30 feet into the air. It did not explode or break apart upon impact which was totally   incomprehensible to Daniel. After he had recovered from his initial shock he walked over to the missile and noticed that it had a small section with some clear paneled windows. Looking through the panels he saw what looked like vials or test tubes placed in a rack. He stood looking at them in amazement as he awoke from the strange dream.

     The next morning the Changlings were sitting at the dinning room table. They gave a moment of silence in prayer in thanks for the meal then began to eat. Clara Bell asked if anyone had dreams the night before that they would like to share at the mornings meal. Daniel looked at his mother as if frozen in time of a moment.

     "I had the most...what can I saw, real, startling dream." Before he could share the dream his mother asked him to,

     "Repeat the Angelica rules for dream sharing Daniel."    

      "Never tell a dream that did not occur, never add or take from the dream shared and only add to the dream when dreaming."

     "Very good Daniel. Share with us your nights dream vision."

     As I recounted the dream to my parents they looked at each other then looked back at me. When I was finished they did not say a word but continued eating their breakfast of white grapes, raw Norwegian herring, cheese, Matzos and tea. Finally my father offered me some herring but I declined his offer..

     "Trials of the heart Daniel. Mankind is now at war. It is a war of the higher self with the lower self. The missile is, among other things, the attacking thoughts of the other. Yet in the meeting of another person something can be healed in us, they can become points of growth, and a quickening is effected between people when the truth is shared. Then words lead to the experience of loving your neighbor as your self. In giving love our chalice is formed to be filled with grace from the spiritual worlds." 

     "The Holy Grail?" Daniel asked.

     "That's right, the Holy Grail allows us to overcome family and feeds our needs to become brothers and sisters in new ways born from within us."    

     We ate breakfast quietly as I thought about what I was going to say. "I figure it's time to work a little sports magic again with the Los Angeles Lakers and I also have about five pounds of manuscripts that I have written over the last 6 years while on ice, so to speak, serving in the military. I'm going to see about getting an agent here in town to help me get my work published, or produced for television or film."     

     "Television? an agent? Daniel you have the best agent in the world already, you know that, why bother with show business. We make clocks and glass ware, have for more than 200 years. Better that you help me with the shop now, meet someone special and settle down." Looking at his son imploringly he said, "your mother and I are not going to be living here for ever you know son." 

     "I understand dad, it's just an itch I have, so I'm going to scratch around and see what comes of it. If it doesn't work out I'll be back in the shop making clocks and rain catches with you while listening to the Lakers on the radio, so don't worry about it. Like I said, it's just an itch that I need to scratch, that's all."

     My parents looked at each other as if pondering the mysteries of their colored rain catch bowls, then Clara Bell turned back to me. "God has given you a wonderful imagination son, we have always known that. So go ahead, you can work with your father if it does not work out.  Who knows, scratch around a little, something just might happen."

     I looked at my parents and knew that they were as a bed rock for me. That no matter how far I flew, or from what heights I might fall back to earth, they would be there to catch me. There home was my home, their love the fire of my courage. It was now the right time to try and realize some of my dreams, at no one else's expense. I could hear the soundtrack from the movie I had seen several days before playing loud in my mind now. Loud pounding drums and the haunting baroque sopranino recorder calling me home and I was at peace, for now. Then my father spoke to me.

     "Fact is Daniel humans are here for one reason only, because God and the angels need us. They need us to think, feel and will the future of the universe. With art human beings can give back to God and the angels what they have given to us. So you see we are very important for the building of our future universe. And by doing this we create a soul connection with it's evolution. If your art is good Daniel then you will be doing what the universe needs to evolve. Unfortunately most art today is not contributing to this process."(2)

     My mother excused herself from the table. While walking to the kitchen she stopped and said: "Oh I'm sure someone in this town will be interested in what you have to say and it seems to me that some entertainers know more about what's happening to our planet today than our own elected  politicians.. they get out more I figure" then disappeared into the kitchen. 

     "The Lakers better be mountain climbers, because they are going to have to over take the Sacramento- 'Kings in the making', a deep, steep mountain, to win another championship. But then again you have always had that sports magic thing going for you since you were a child, so we will see... Got any tricks in that feathered back pack for fixing the earth's weather? Can't stand all this rain we been getting lately. You would think we were living in a cloud forest or something." "You mean rain forest, right?" "Which ever.  It's raining a lot and I wish it would stop."

     "I do have some ideas about saving our atmosphere dad. I have some inventor friends here in town who are working on that right now. Over the years I have stayed in touch with them and now I think it's time to pay them a visit and turn up the heat so to speak. It's now or never. Cumulative effects compound, at faster and faster rates. I don't see what is so hard about that concept really."

     My father smiled at me and said: "I call it the Alice in Wonderland logic son. Let the problems fix themselves, it's so much cheaper that way. All while cumulative effects in this finite world of ours increase in orders of magnitude, until finally a zeroing out is reached with the world returning to an equilibrium...problem solved"... 

     "You know dad the rest of the world is looking to America for leadership on these environmental issues today... and that's about as sobering as a judge on the take. Guess we have to take things into our own hands like a lot of other places around the world to get things fixed on the planet." (11)

      After a few moments I got up from the dinning room table and walked over to the sliding glass door that looked out on the patio and garden. Over the years my parents had landscaped a small yet charming rose garden with 10 red and yellow bushes with a path that ran between them. 5 on each side of the path and enclosed by a four foot tall yew hedge with an entrance just off the patio. Sliding the door open I stepped out on to the patio and walked through the entrance into the quaint garden. I enjoyed smelling the roses as I walked through the carefully manicured garden. In the far corner of the garden was our pomegranate tree named Sandalphon by my mother. I then returned to the patio just off the garden to sit down in one of the patio chairs. It was a beautiful morning with hardly a cloud in the sky. As I turned my gaze to look at the alabaster angel with it's sea shell bowl I could see the blue skies reflection in the calm clear rain water. 

     I saw my parents reflection in the clear shining water as they stood at the door inside their house looking out at me sitting on the patio. I looked at their smiling faces then as they walked away I could hear jets flying overhead. I Looked up to see them fly past in a matter of moments with only their condensation trails left mingling in the sparse clouds above. As I looked back into the angels rain water catch I saw the con trails slithering like snakes across the waters surface until they had covered the entire pool with their reflection. Then through the clouds I saw an old man riding a bike down a road with flowers draped around his handle bars that faded into a green coup driving down the same country road fading again into the very beautiful face of a woman who looked at me with such sad eyes... My reflections were broken by the sound of more jets flying overhead. They left more condensation trails that were cumulous formed white, thick and long-lasting jet trails which eventually spread out to make a thin layer of clouds on what had been a near cloudless morning sky. (4) My father stepped out on the porch.

     "Well look at that from clear to cloudy in 20 minutes. Must be a coastal weather system moving in but it doesn't feel right, it's not cool enough. Strange. Your mother and I have seen these jets crisscrossing the sky for years now, filling the sky with their spent fuels exhaust. You wouldn't know anything about that would you Daniel." 

     I knew the scuttle-but while serving in the Air Force, the rumors, unsubstantiated chatter,  mostly to while away the time. You see, satellite surveillance of drug trafficking over our borders or watching the flood of illegal entries pouring into the country got boring at a certain point, and to be honest, seemed pointless really as little was being done with our surveillance information. So we would talk about the story happening above our heads as the one below us did not seem to have any rhyme or reason to it... I knew my father was on to something with his simple yet keen powers of observation so I figured I would let him in on a little secret that we held close to our chest in the Air Force. 

     "You asked me if I had any tricks in 'that feathered back pack' for fixing the earth's weather patterns. The rain, you said it was like living in a cloud forest. Well..." pointing to the sky I shared with him what I had been hearing in the Air Force for the last 3 years. "We think it's a "planetary sunscreen" like a water vapor only made from reflective powders called Welsbach Materials that are being added to the jets fuel. The thinking is that by seeding the stratosphere with these very fine reflective powders made mostly of aluminum oxide we can slow down global warming. Rather than evaporating quickly like normal jet fuel or water it spreads out 'to raise the planets albedo so that about 1% of incoming sunlight would be reflected into space' in the hopes of slowing global warming." (4)

     My father listened with keen interest, then smiling at me he replied:  

     "Now that's really something Daniel Changling. We threw out all the aluminum cookware years ago due to the Alzheimer's scare, now we have to breathe in aluminum oxide fallout in the hopes that it might slow global warming... Guess if it doesn't work we won't remember anyway."

     He left me sitting on the patio and walked into his shop to work on some clocks. As I sat there enjoying the gardens scents and looking at the colored rain catches I did notice that the air seemed slightly cooler than it had been just an hour earlier. I looked up into the sky but now what had been an overcast cloudy sky just an hour before was now near cloudless again, with only long wide jet trails left spreading out slowly in the sky.

    Clara Bell walked out on to the patio."Oh it's cool out here. Daniel I want to show you something in the garden." She took my hand and we walked to the far end of the yard. A small pomegranate tree grew in the corner of the garden. At the base of the trunk were some beautiful quartz crystals. I remember them from my childhood but unlike the house that seemed smaller to me over the years, the quartz crystals seemed to have grown larger.

     "You remember Sandalphon our pomegranate tree here don't you Daniel? Say hello, it loves the attention. Do you notice anything different about it?"

     Saying my hello I then looked at the tree for a moment or two my gaze fell to the ground and I noticed my mother's crystals that she collected over the years.

     "Yes I do mom. The tree is bigger naturally... but if I'm not mistaken the quartz crystals seem somehow bigger also but that's not possible is it?"

     "To answer that question you have to understand just what a crystal is first. It is a creation of the cosmic light that has descended into the dark. You can say the light has overcome the darkness and created a form out of chaos, still now as the rolling hills in their silent eternity, at rest in a peaceful existence. You see Daniel the crystal is really formed as if it were at the center of space. Free of earth, it's more like an earth it's self. Like a celestial body in perfect form set in infinite space, here from earth's beginning on through to the changing tides of earth's constant and ongoing transformation."

     She bent over and picked up a piece of the crystal off the ground and handed it to me.    "Crystals don't really grow they just hollow out the etheric spaces around them, filling in  empty space. Our pomegranate tree here is rooted to the ground and grows out into space, the crystal is like a self contained Earth without need of the earth for it's existence. It's like the fixed stars above, the tree is more like the planet, ever changing."

     I held the crystal in my hand and between the plant and crystal I now understood why my parents were angels to me. They understood the secrets of the simple feeling life of the soul and were now sharing these secrets with me. The cosmic light of the mineral found in the crystal that I held in my hand and the rhythmus of the plant world that I saw in  the pomegranate tree seemed to cross in this small carefully tended garden of my parents. Like spirit and matter crossing in time through me as I stood there.

     "Daniel I need to explain something else to you now. Let's go sit on the patio." Once seated my mother looked at me and started to talk about the dream vision that I was now experiencing. "You will need to find that ground where your dream vision matches that of another. When you do, you will have found a soul mate. I know this sounds impossible, two people having the same dream but it's not. When this happens you must remember the dream perfectly and then anticipate seeing that person in the near future. When you see them, inquire of the other if they had a similar dream. When there is confirmation you will be as the Buddhist say 'liberated from this veil of tears', at least for the moment anyway. It is part of the Angelica training that you are now undergoing. "

     We sat on the patio looking at the many colorful rain catches. The small  lotus lily shaped glass bowls caught the sun light on the waters surface, then the light was refracted through the colored glass onto the surface of the cement patio. Reds, yellows, blues and peach colors filled the patio surface like the rays of colored crystals surrounding the alabaster kneeling angel with the sea shell catch. The subtle beauty moved me deeply and as a soft breeze blew through the garden the colors shimmered across the porch raying out in all directions, and even to touch our feet. We sat there quietly watching the play of light and colors, it was like a beautiful dream. Then my mother spoke again.

     "Presence of mind is very important for this work Daniel. Remember that as you dream.  Fortune does favor the brave and there is a reason for that, it keeps the faint of heart from getting into places where they have no business being in the first place." My mother got up from her chair: "Remember the words to that song in the movie 'Babe- Pig in the City' Daniel? A kind and steady heart, make a gray sky blue, a task that seems impossible is quite possible for you.. A kind and steady heart can conquer doubt and fear, a little courage goes a long, long way, gets you a little bit further down the road each day." Your father and I love that movie. Think we must have watched it a half dozen times over the last few years, you watched it with us when you were on leave a few years ago. Some good advice there son. We have the video if you would like to watch it with us sometime.... Well I have house work to do now so if you will excuse me." 

     "Thanks mom that would be nice... Mom before you go, do you remember the poem you named the pomegranate tree after?"

     "Sandelphon by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, yes of course. Sister Mother Kellor my English teacher for 12th grade English Literature had us all memorize it. Funny how poetry sticks with you over the years when so much else seems to fade away... Would you like to hear it Daniel. "

     "Sure mother I would like that very much."

     "Alright here goes." Standing in the middle of the patio facing me, her feet square, shoulders set back, head held high, she begins to recite the poem from memory.

"Sandalphon by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"

"Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it,--the marvelous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn and expire
With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below;-

From spirits on earth that adore,
From souls that entreat and implore
In the fervor and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,--
A fable, a phantom, a show,
Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediaeval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing 
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden
To quiet its fever and pain."

     She looked younger now after recited the wonderful poem. I looked at her and marveled that my old mother could still recite such a long poem.

     "Thanks mom, that is a beautiful poem. Your teacher Mother Kellor would be proud that you still remember it after all these years." 

      She smiled and stepped back into the house not saying another word, leaving me to think about what she had shared with me that morning. The walk through her garden, the poem and the crystal which I held in my hand. It had become warm as I studied the uneven six sided pyramid at it's clear and shining top. Her words came back to me. "It is a creation of the cosmic light that has descended into the dark".

      As the world around us was changing rapidly, I knew humanity had come to a pinch point as it headed into the future. Old beliefs about our world were falling off, as over some flat earth's edge, and as if time was standing still, past and future mingled into the still point of the present moment. The Angelica order of the 'natural divine beings' of the Talmud and Bible were close by. Visible in the nights sky now, watching over troubled humanity, offering their help and direction. This ancient force of nature was here, ready to empower the human being with a connection to all things on the planet and the universe, we just needed to look up in the night sky to see and feel it. Like the crystals light caught in the dark, humanity was becoming a new force of nature, emerging from it's dark cave into the eternal light of the light above. Holding the warm crystal in my hand I got up and walked to my father's shop.

     The door to his shop was made of dark red Lebanon cedar. It was a very old and heavy door held to the frame of the small house by big black, hand wrought iron hinges that creaked as I opened the door. Hanging over the entrance was a small sign that read 'Time is a Relative of Mine'. As I walked into the shop the first thing I always noticed is how quiet it is. With many cuckoo clocks on all four walls, only one kept the time, while the others were as a mute testament to the ancient art of time keeping. They all worked and my father was only to happy to demonstrate this fact, but they were unwound and hung there quiet on the walls otherwise. Another thing that struck me odd about his shop is that all the clocks were set to about 3 minutes before 12:00, at exactly 11:57. Not 12:00 or 5 past but 11:57. I asked him once why he did this, his only reply was:

     "Because it's getting late."

     Over the years I would come to understand what he meant by that. As I walked around his shop admiring the beautiful clocks and glass bowls that he made in his small foundry in the back of his shop I could see that my father had managed to somehow stop time compressing it into a moment that stood still here in his little shop. His studio and work place could have been in those deep valleys of the Black Forest back 75 years ago. The dark oak work bench, the lead framed windows, his accordion sitting on a small table below the window, the small wood burning stove in the corner of his shop that he had not used in years, even the steep slopped roof of the little shop with it's exposed rafters of pine. Around the entire shop on the baseboards of the floor my father painted Edelweiss flowers giving the interior of the shop a look of being in a field of flowers in some alpine valley. All of it reminded me of some tinkers shop in an alpine village from another time long ago, transplanted to Southern California.

     Hanging on the walls were colorfully painted chalet cuckoo clocks, bird cuckoo's of course, deer cuckoo's, even hunter and fisherman cuckoo's. All still as the scenes they portrayed. A print of a beautiful waterfall hung on the back wall. I watched him repairing what looked like the gears of a clock with such painstaking exactness that I wondered if he had forgotten that I was even there. Then he stopped and looked up at me from his work bench.

     "Your mother says I could sell my clocks on the Internet. Do you think you could help me with that son?"

     "Sure dad I know how to build sites, I think that's a good idea." 

     "Great I look forward to that son...you know they think we are an endangered species don't you."

     "What's that dad, cuckoo clock makers?"

     "No Daniel, people who think that faith, good work, peace and spiritual investigation can make the world a better place. 3000 years ago Daniel, my people, a band of loosely knit desert tribes came together under the belief of a One God and the original idea that people could make a difference in the world. (6) Somehow that band of ancient desert tribes with this revolutionary idea become what is called the Zionist state of Israel in 1948. Today we need to honor the ancient Semites of the region, the Palestinian people with their own homeland. It makes sense really and has to be solved, this problem of a homeland for the Palestinian people."

     "A cooperative effort between peoples would be as an oasis for the region really, but they must want that. People on both sides have to want peace to have peace."

     My father went back to his work repairing a clock as I looked around his shop again. Then it dawned on me that the only clock keeping time in there was one cuckoo clock. When I looked at my watch it said 12:00 straight up, but the cuckoo clock behind my father hanging on the wall said it was 4:44, set exactly 4 hours and 44 minutes ahead of my watches time...Seems 'time is a relative of mine' and is found in my father's Black Forrest Cuckoos and Glassware shop.

     Just then the cuckoo clock started to call out the time. The bird that sprang forward had a heart that beat through it's feathered chest to the trilling chirp's of it's little bill. It's mechanisms working perfect, as a very little protruding heart proceeded to keep beat to each of the12 melodious cuckoo's. It was very funny really.

     "See my waterfall print up there Daniel? Let me tell you something about waterfalls. Ever watch a trout swim up stream? Yes?" "Well salmon to be exact, but continue." "Same thing. Anyway you see them jumping up those high water ladders with hardly any effort on their part. You can do the same thing Daniel. Use this energy that Viktor Schauberger discovered while working in the woods of Austria during the 1920's. He discovered that running water builds up energy that flows in the opposite from the waters flow."

     "The waterfalls energy carries the fish?"

     "What he discovered is that this waterfall energy flows like a channel of light in the streaming water and that the trout or salmon looks for this energy flow and when it finds it is  pulled upwards like it was in a whirlpool of energy."(12)

     "Gravity of Angel fish overcoming the force of gravity" I joked with my father.

     That afternoon I borrowed my parents car and drove out to see some old friends. I had grown up with them as kids and had stayed in touch with them over the years. Able Kidd and Julian Houser were my oldest friends. 

     They a machine fabrication shop up in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains. Before that they had been working up in Canada for 10 years at a research center for environment reclamation. They built negative Ion generation and ozone generation equipment that they believed  could help save our atmosphere. Being inventors and died in the wool bachelors they were otherwise perfectly normal. Claimed the Elohim were accessed through the colors of the rainbow, which explained why they had so many crystals refracting it's caught sun light and casting it across the big barn in waves of the color spectrum, filling the lofty spaces of the shop like it were some laser show.

     Aside from that, they were in fact perfectly normal, dedicating their lives to working with ozone remediation and negative Ion generators. The negative Ion generators restored the low negative Ion content in our atmosphere they said and helped with their ozone remediation protocols that they had developed over the last 10 years. 

     They were watching the Los Angeles Lakers basketball game on the television when I walked into the large barn. They had set up a viewing area in the far corner of the barn, with a couch and several comfortable chairs for company. A large poster of Lance Armstrong crossing the finish line to win his fourth Tour de France in a row hung on the wall. The greatest athletic feat of the 20th and young 21st centuries Julian Houser would tell you if asked for his opinion. He was a bicyclist and a huge fan of Lance Armstrong. A poster of Tiger Woods hung on the other wall across from the bicyclist poster.