Chapter thirteen: the warmth of fire.

   The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus, but
   rather the solar plexus. (40)

As the neighbors left the meeting place to return home, I felt an odd sense of distance from them, or more accurately an objectivity regarding their emotional state. Several of them were still angry and aggressive toward the people that wanted a zoning variance. Although I could no longer see the fragments battling the Guardians, and the ember in the brain being fanned into flames, I was vividly aware of that process still at work in their bodies. And knowing about the primeval forces involved within this subterranean netherworld, I felt a genuine empathy for each one. What surprised me, however, was the thought that my sense of calm was actually entering and influencing that same netherworld within others. In other words, these emotions were highly contagious. Two things about that thought caught me by surprise: one, that added to the fray within were energies from outside the person, and second, that gratitude and compassion could have a contagious influence just as surely as festering wounds and fear and despair.

Another thought lingered in my mind from the panoramic experience of the evening, and that was the way that Raven had appeared from the void and disappeared back into it. There seemed to be no transition for Raven, no coming and going. He simply materialized, and eventually vanished. I could not hold that possibility. It felt so natural earlier to see the layers of history within people, to know that the forces doing battle had a genesis. The unburied dead had once lived, and the Guardians developed subsequently as a defense. Their history could be traced, and I felt comforted by that knowledge. Yet Raven and the void had no history, they existed outside of history, beyond time. And the truth he spoke was nebulous, not yet fully formed.

In some inexplicable way, the nervous systems of the people that evening had been communicating with each other, silently, unconsciously, like a wi-fi wireless network. I wanted to ponder these things further, to be quiet and unfocused so that the not-yet-fully-formed wisdom could emerge from the void to enlighten me and answer my questions. The evening was cool but inviting, and I selected a huge oak tree standing in a large open space in the public park nearby. I sat down, leaned my back against the solid tree trunk, and became very quiet. Bathed in the cool moonlight, I could hear only my breathing and my heartbeat. I sensed that my breathing was synchronized to my heart's rhythm. I gradually fell into a light, yet very deep, reverie. My heartbeat became more pronounced, dominating my whole experience. It was not just the familiar sound, but the surf-like motion and an indefinable pulsing field of energy. The blood was lapping in and out of a sandy shore, then sent coursing through a narrow inlet, turbulently frothing and foaming. And Dolphin came gracefully swimming up to shore from the deep. Dolphin's breath was exuberant, triumphant. Dolphin, keeper of the sacred breath of life, playfully offered to share the living secrets of access to Dreamtime through the breath, through the heart.

Dolphin's essence is rhythm and pattern, alternating his life first below the surface and then above. My breathing began to follow his rhythm, as I swam below and then above with him. Diving down to explore the depths and returning easily to the surface to breathe once again. Each dive took us deeper, and with each return we lingered longer on the surface. The greater the depth, the darker and more impenetrable was this world. It was indeed the Under World. And yet the blood of life force in which we swam had a primordial intelligence that bridged between the depths and the surface. That intelligence, listened to, regulated our breathing, our heartbeats, and the rhythm of our circulation. Dolphin's freedom of movement conveyed how brain rhythms naturally synchronize to the heart's rhythm. Dolphin exuded love and appreciation, passion and gratitude, and in his circulation upward and downward he coaxed synchrony within the blood pressure and respiratory rhythms, hormone and lymph flow, the organs themselves. Easily moving between the Under World and the Upper World, Dolphin playfully showed me how he weaved harmony throughout his journey.

In the weaving, Dolphin opened to his feminine side, bidden by Grandmother Moon's tidal rhythms. My experience in the cave with Bear came rushing back to me, how the breath and heartbeat had synchronized, and Bear's meaning in saying that the purpose of entering the cave was to digest past experience and arrive at completion with it. And I had a glimmer of recognition now of what Bear had meant by womb-cave. The sea of life force that Dolphin and I were swimming in felt to me very much like Bear's cave, humidly contained and protected, but different in that it was expansive. We dived deeper still, Dolphin teaching me, until we reached the liver, engorged with dark blood. At the opening to the recesses of that organ we could see guardians, but Dolphin was playful with them, good-naturedly teasing them. Dolphin was so comfortable in this Under World, at-home with the darkness, the passions and the turmoil. Waters here were turbulent, the earth in upheaval. Yet Dolphin seemed to be just as at-home up on the surface where the waters were smooth and the earth dependable.

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Swimming up to the surface, Dolphin shot out into the humid atmosphere above. He could fly! He seemed to embody Grandfather Sun more as he became more open to Grandmother Moon. What a paradox that seemed to be, that polar opposites could possibly go beyond peaceful coexistence, beyond even complementing each other, to synthesis. Can that apply to the turbulence of water and the smoothness of water? I was also grappling with the dawning awareness that gratitude and compassion could have an influence just as surely as festering wounds and fear and despair. Even more perplexing to me was the vision that energies could be exchanged not only between the Under World and Upper world, between the depths below and the atmosphere above, but also between one person and another, as I had observed within that angry group earlier that evening.

Dolphin swam the answer to this riddle. The heart, the blood circulation system, sent out its message of coherent harmony to all the other systems in the body. Dolphin was the messenger, carrying the word playfully, with exuberance, to every place beneath the surface and beyond. Out into the atmosphere beyond the reach of blood, beyond the skin, out to the space between this body and others. (41) The rhythmic patterns of the heart embody an invitation sent throughout the body and beyond to "Come join with me. Come and play." Of course, the same delivery system, the heart's electromagnetic field, can be commandeered by the unburied dead escaped from their confinement in the liver. Then the message of turbulence, fear and despair is carried throughout the body and beyond. The contagion of positive or negative emotion is carried from one person to another just like the nutrient water is carried between redwood trees; not through a connected conduit system of roots, but through a wireless conduit system. Our nervous systems are constructed to be captured by the nervous systems of others, so that we can experience others as if from within their skin. (42) My feelings can be commandeered by your unburied dead! So now I had received another lesson from that night with the little people outside my bedroom window. We are much more closely connected than I ever realized, or dreamed. And as contagious as sadness and anger are, laughter is" the shortest distance between two brains.

Dolphin's playfulness with the demons in the darkness below showed me a way of reversing the commandeering; I could tame them, keep them from using the body's energy and the heart's delivery system for their own unhealthy purposes. With compassion and gratitude, I could send out the signal inviting harmony. And in doing that, the energy of those demons and their guardians could be commandeered for healthy harmonious purposes. And the energy of someone else's demons run amok, potentially capable of triggering reactions in my body, can also be commandeered for healthy purposes within my body.

Dolphin had more messages for me. Just as emotions spread from mind to mind through that wireless network, so too do ideas. Ideas, beliefs and concepts gather power the same way that the unburied dead do: they associate with strong emotions generated in the depths, in the Under World. Some ideas are naturally incompatible with others, and they go to war. Some ideas are demanding, and they burden their host. Those ideas can fight with each other endlessly, or impose their burden mercilessly, as long as there is emotional energy to draw on from nearby people. These entities that borrow power from strong emotion share a subtle, inexorable magnetism, a gravity like pull between people that explains the contagion in a group of both laughter and violence.

Another type of entity that borrows power from strong emotion is memories, especially the nagging, recurring ones. Most memories of past events are available to be called upon as needed, but do not intrude unbidden. Traumatic memories, memories attached to deeply emotional hurt, helplessness or regret, also can exert a magnetic gravity like pull on a person's experience, contaminating their present with an unseen descent into the packed density of what is past. This" dark, implacable entity will invade your mind and body if you allow it, .filling you up, leaving little space for pleasure in your aliveness, causing you to squander your present moment. (43)

The information flow extends not only beyond the body, but also outside time. Both the heart and brain intuitively respond to information about a future event before the event actually happens. (44) This seemed to explain some of my life experiences, and yet the suggestion of this heart field was becoming more and more incredible.

Dolphin splashed, dived, and literally flew out of the water. The message was clear to me. It is not only people that are connected to this wireless mutual communication system. Animals send out and receive messages on that grid. Trees and flowers and all plant life communicate on the same wireless network. Music can entrain moods and emotions through that network. Spirits and ancestors and angels send and receive using the same field. The earth, the elements, and the directions are connected. The interchange between all aspects of creation is determined by the intensity of emotional energy available to draw on. Personal separateness is a myth.