Chapter XI, Reading 3

Kewero smiled at Flindra.  "I don't know exactly what we have just done, child, but for the first time in years I feel real hope."

Flindra was looking at some distant horizon in her imagination.  She answered in a reflective tone.  "Our knowledge compliments each other's.  Each of us could only see a piece of the whole.  Together it is complete."  After she said it, she shook her head quickly, like a dreamer started from her rest.  "What did I just say?"

Kewero repeated the words and then commented, "I believe the Spirit just spoke through you, child.  I think it is time to discuss your experience.  It appears you have gained more than I thought possible.  What happened, my Princess?"

Thus prompted, Flindra began her tale.  Kewero interrupted when she mentioned the barrier where she had encountered so much pain.

"You pushed through the barrier, didn't you?"

"Somehow I felt that I needed to go beyond the pain to reach the knowledge I need to fight the Ansu.  I knew it was absolutely necessary for me to pass through."  She paused for a moment and bit her lip in concentration.  "I think even learning how to pass through the barrier was part of what I need to know."

"I'm most curious.  How exactly did you manage this feat?"

Flindra told the mentor how she had seen the lives of all who had passed before her and had grown to love them in the intimate contact of the experience.  The love was the power she needed to become one with her memories and to become one with the awareness of life.

"I felt the pain again," she related, "but this time my feelings of oneness with the all allowed me to become one with the pain.  I was singed by the intense contact but I made it through."

Kewero shook her head in disbelief.  "I have probed this barrier with my mind and have felt the unbelievable agony.  I never did penetrate it, since my initial encounter left me with the understanding that I was not to proceed.  It's obvious now that you were the only one meant to pass through.  What was on the other side?"

"I don't remember much.  I was overwhelmed by the intensity and my mind still feels numb.  Even so, I'm comfortable with the situation for I know that when I need specific knowledge it will come to me."  She shook her head with a mystified expression touching the features of her face.  "The Spirit is beyond understanding and I know I came close to the Presence.  By remembering only small pieces I can cope with the enormity of my experience."

"Small wonder you collapsed the way you did.  Mortal minds aren't really equipped to deal with the Infinite.  I think your foggy memory may be for the best, my child.  It's just possible that your mind might have the tendency to become unhinged if everything you learned was packed into your conscious mind," Kewero returned with mirth.

"Just like a trunk that is overfilled.  Leudh and I once broke the hinges on a trunk when we tried to put too much in it.  Momma wasn't very pleased with us at the time," Flindra recalled with a grin on her lips.  Then in a more sober tone she continued, "I think it's also possible that I need to gain some understanding to utilize the knowledge locked within my mind.  This understanding can only be born through experience."

Kewero laughed outright.  "My dear, my dear.  It seems that we have traded places.  You are now my teacher!"

A blush rushed to Flindra's cheeks at this praise from her mentor.  "You exaggerate, dear mother, I still have much to learn from you!"

"You've never called me that before!  Why dear mother?"

"Because you are a mother to me - one of the dear women who have shown me so much.  My birth mother, who gave me the gift of life; my foster mother, whose love still fills my heart with comfort; my dear teacher, who has shown me the path to wisdom.  I owe you much, dear Kewero; you have devoted your life to me and mine.  My debt is great."