Chapter 2:Settling In
by Sandy Penny
The first two weeks at Sanctuary, Margaret and Sandy were busy planning menus for the solar nutrition meals they would serve at the house. Solar nutrition was introduced by Adono Lai, and it was because of him that Sandy and Margaret had met. Margaret had been the chef at Adono Lai’s health and nutrition center, and a mutual friend took Sandy there to eat. Already a vegetarian, she became a regular for either lunch or dinner.
From the time she first met Margaret, Sandy felt a need to help her, and hired her at the secretarial service she managed. They bonded as friends, and Sandy introduced Margaret to the man she later married. The two women eventually found out they had a past life together, and that Sandy owed Margaret a karmic debt, but that's another story.
They sat at the breakfast table, and Margaret explained the Solar Nutrition philosophy.
“You eat food at the peak of its energy, which is set as the sun shines on the plants during their growth cycle.
"Typically, in the morning, you eat things that grow high in the trees because they get the first sunlight. Most fruit is eaten in the morning. At lunch, you eat things that grow from a foot to several feet from the ground like grains and greens. In the evening, you eat things that grow on the ground or under the ground to harmonize with the darkness and help you sleep. Throughout the day you get a varied and balanced diet.”
There was also a specific way the food was cooked, and Margaret was very good at making healthy, delicious meals.
(For More on Margaret's activities, click the Unicorn.)
It was part of Margaret’s contribution to the household to plan and prepare these meals for those who attended events. It was a high energy, low cost diet they could feed to large numbers of people at a low price. Most of the food came from the large Farmer's Market on Airline Road.
In the middle of their discussion on Solar Nutrition, Margaret stopped and looked at Sandy, then closed her eyes. “How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked as she tapped her foot on the hardwood floors.
Sandy answered immediately, “One year. That’s what my guides have told me. One year at Sanctuary and then I’ll go help someone else set up a healing center on their land. That’s what I’ve been getting in meditation.”
Margaret nodded her head and agreed, “That’s what I get too, one year. Seems like a short time, but I’m sure it’s right.”
They went back to planning the events, food and advertising that would bring in clients for the household. Sandy was a writer and graphic designer and had connections with the Indigo Sun, local spiritual newspaper. Sandy had created the first spiritual newspaper in Houston, The Rising Sun, and had helped launch this one. So, designing ads and fliers were up to her.
Their settling in was going well, except for the stair walking ghost they kept hearing. It would walk down from the second floor to the landing, pause and slowly walk back up. Every step echoing through the hardwoods. Sometimes it rattled a bedroom doorknob. It didn’t seem to be threatening, but there was something important about it.
Sandy meditated on their household ghost and was told her name was Mary, and that an event would happen at the house that would bring someone there who knew who Mary was.
Well, she would love to know more, and was sure it would come soon.
It was early evening, and Sandy was sitting on the back porch steps, gazing at the sparkling water in the swimming pool. It was very hypnotic as the last rays of the day danced on the watery surface. Water dripped from the slanted porch roof. Since it had not rained lately, Sandy wondered why it was still dripping. The sound of the droplets created a heartbeat sound as they rhythmically fell on the cement step.
A story began to form in Sandy’s mind. She saw a tall man sitting on this very step. His rough hands were over his face, and he was sobbing. I wanted to ask him why he was crying, but I was pretty sure a vision would not answer me. Still, as I formed the question, the voice of one of my guides spoke to me.
It said, “He’s crying because his wife committed suicide, and he thinks it’s his fault.”
"How awful," I said, "What happened?"
My guide continued, "His wife, Mary, had cancer. She had been steadily declining for several years, and her pain had gotten almost unbearable. They were managing it with opiates, but she had become an invalid. On a good day, she could walk down the stairs to the landing, but had to have help to get back up to her room.”
“How sad,” Sandy responded. “I’d be depressed too. I don’t do well with pain.”
“She had another reason to be depressed,” the guide responded. “Her husband had taken a lover, and brought her into the house, right across the hall from Mary’s room.”
“What a jerk,” I said. “Don’t be too quick to judge,” continued my guide. “Mary had been sick for two years, and John was in the prime of his life. He thought it was better to be at the house in case Mary needed him than to go off with the other woman and never be at home. He didn't realize she would even know, much less be hurt by it.”
“Oh,” Sandy said, still not too sympathetic.
"Mary didn’t tell him that she knew what he was doing, but it took a further toll on her health. Soon, she could not even walk down to the landing. She stayed in bed, and the servants took care of her. John could hardly bear to go in and see her that way, but he still loved her deeply. He just didn’t know what to do. There was little hope for cancer victims in the 1940s.”
Sandy felt deeply moved by the situation, but still felt the husband should have waited until his wife died before moving on. However, she had dated a man who had lost his wife after two years of fighting cancer, and he desperately needed to be reaffirmed as a man. He needed to be reminded that life goes on. He had not done anything until his wife died, but they began dating soon after, and he held tremendous guilt for violating his wife’s memory. In the end, it broke them up, so she had some understanding of that type of situation. Her heart softened a little.
“Why does he still cry on the back porch?” Sandy asked.
“After Mary hanged herself, he was distraught. He could hardly stay in the house at all. He sat on the back porch and cried and cried every night. That’s why the water drips. His tears are imprinted on the house, like a haunting. Soon after her death, he sold the house and moved on.
"After Mary died, she was out of the pain she had been in, and she witnessed his grief at her passing. She had no idea that he had loved her so much, and that her death would cause him such pain. She vowed that her spirit would remain in the house until he returned for her. And that is why she continues to walk the stairs and rattle the doorknobs, looking for her husband."
Sandy wanted to help her cross over, but she had a feeling that the only way to complete the energy between them was for her husband to return and for her to see that he was OK. And she had a strange feeling that she might see that happen one day. Stranger things had happened in her spiritual life. Read More ...
