Confession of a Ghost. 11. 30. Ghost Ship

“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

30 BEFORE/11 AFTER. HOUSE No. 5

*****GIRL with VIOLETS*****

***
Somewhere in the Universe


I noticed a girl gliding towards us through the clouds. She greeted me and handed…

“Violets?!” horrified, I looked at the Guardian in hope.

“I’m daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, the highest manifestation of Saturn, Pluto’s wife, the goddess of the Kingdom of the Dead, Persephone, or Proserpine,” the Girl said. “They knew me back in Babylon as Nibiru, and the Zoroastrians called me Daena. Pluto kidnapped me when I was picking violets. I live either with him or on Earth. He gave me a pomegranate seed to taste so that I would always remember death and return to his Kingdom.”

“Proserpine belongs to the light spectral class,” the Guardian consoled me. “She gives a unique chance to open a secret door on Via Combusta, I mean the Burnt Road.”

“Does Proserpine mean Death?” I supposed.

“I’m for radical transformation,” she smiled, “rebirth, transition to another level. The call of the Higher Forces for the constant development of the Spirit. Striving for the Absolute, purity and impeccability. I’ll encourage you to move up, to work on yourself continuously and systematically, not allowing you to stop. As soon as you get stuck, I’ll immediately provoke something. Of course, such people don’t feel easy on Earth because of the increasing demands not only on themselves, but also on others.”

“If you implement the energy of Proserpine, you’ll become a professional with the capital letter,” the Guardian added. “In extreme situations, when everyone refuses to take the hit, signing the own helplessness, you’ll be able to handle it.”

“You need to systematize information scrupulously and fundamentally,” Proserpine continued, “and improve yourself in Sphere No. 5, plunging into it with your head, climbing your Stairway to Heaven. I usually patronize the fundamental sciences, complex analytical works, the creation of global systems, medicine and genetics. However, if one is a magician by passport, I push to work with the Subtle World – alchemy, astronomy, magic, the study of posthumous states… As for workaholism, mathematical and analytical abilities and structuring, I’m Saturn-like and can’t stand lazy people. Saturn works in the earthly area with the majority, in your case he is oriented to the Heavenly, while I focus exclusively on the Heavenly. We give you a great potential for spiritual growth. Your Saturn has a Plutonic character, I’m Pluto’s wife, and we both are in the Sphere where your Burnt Road is located.”

“What kind of road is that?” I asked.

“Both realities, Earthly and Ours, are combined on it, and there is the Transition Point there, the door that breaks the Circle. People don’t notice it usually. The task is to find the door. Believe me, the three of us, Saturn, Pluto and I, as well as your Selene and Sirius, will act together and exclusively for the good! As a result of the incarnation, through a deep transformation, you need to stop being dependent on the earthly psychologically, to let go of all attachments to earthly pleasures and passions. Until you begin to let go of the transient and conditional, I’ll be poisonous with you, but one day the Light of Truth beyond the Time Space will be revealed to you.”

“To spur me on, will you also take something away?”

“I’ve been wandering in the Sign of Libra for a little less than a century, this position is not your personal, but a collective one. In the worst case, the concepts of Good and Evil are confused, people appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing, passing off black as white and vice versa. You’ll be surrounded by such people. I hope you won’t become like them. In general, it’s a sign of the transformation of human relations. My degree is more individual. You’ll be distinguished by altruism, sacrifice, many talents, kindness and modesty, craving for the transcendent, the ability for great deeds. Unfortunately, people use your kindness for selfish purposes, especially higher-ranking ones. Parents have an important place in your life, perhaps just due to the fact that …”

“Where is my mother? Why haven’t I seen her yet?” I asked sadly and almost hopelessly.

“Still ahead,” the Guardian patted me on the shoulder.

“As a child, on the eve of discovering your magical abilities, you’ll write a detective story, and your mother will take it to read to her employees. You’ll conduct mysterious investigations with classmates, prefer movies with detective topics, read Agatha Christie. Later you’ll visit Sherlock Holmes’ house and the Platform 9 and 3/4 in London. The thirst for unraveling the tangle of everything hidden and mysterious is your guiding thread to our World, don’t get stuck on detectives! There’s Markeb, one of the stars of the Argo Ship, about 30 minutes away from me. This star inclines one to secrets, magic or to deep religiosity, travelling for knowledge and enlightening people.”

“Secret Knowledge!” said the Guardian. “While magical practices will throw you off the Stairs into the realm of black spirits, making you a hostage of the abyss of the Lower Astral.”

“However,” Proserpine sighed, “everything that concerns Love, Children, Creativity, you are attached by heart to, will bring you suffering – death, loss, sudden breaks in relationships, collapse of plans. Pluto has a colossal force of mental pressure, unlike Mars, who has a physical force. Pluto humiliates your Self, grinding it into powder. The Grape Picker and I will take everything and everyone away in order to avoid attachments to the earthly, for the sake of your soul’s transformation into spiritual being. I’m at the distance of 150 degrees to Venus, it’s called quickens and means an abrupt (!) transition to a qualitatively different level of Consciousness, due to instant liberation from something or someone, including their death. Love is a wonderful stimulus for bright creativity. My square to Saturn will put your Self into a corner. You won’t be able to influence the events in any way, but they won’t be your fault. To get out of the corner, take non-standard actions and transform earthly love into heavenly love. Given the terminal degree of your Venus in Piscis, which guarantees Universal Love, we’ll succeed!”

“Thank you,” I whispered, “you are all very kind to me!”


***
Library of the Universe


“How far is the Burnt Road with the Door to Heaven, Angel?”

“The first turn to the right after your meeting with Uranus and someone else.”

“The Assistant of my Death, Mr. Uranus, is he also in House No. 5?” I asked sadly as I moved to the Reading Hall.

“Anyhow, he can’t escape from the Circle!”

“Is he evil too?”

“Good and Evil are relative concepts. Hardship and losses on Earth should purify the soul as the fire of the Holy Spirit. You, the human being, will find something unfair. You will think, ‘Why?’ I advise you to ask, ‘What for? What’s the purpose?’”

The book opened at the page with the story “The Stranger”. A girl, married to a foreigner, lost husband in an accident and remained alone in the foreign country, with neither job no money. Ironically, a man who fell in love with her, should have died instead of her husband, however…

“Never give violets to anyone! They are certainly beautiful, but… according to legend, people used to place them in coffins of prematurely dead young girls. They say Persephone was picking violets when Hades took her to the Kingdom of the Dead.”


*****GHOST SHIP*****

***
Moscow


“What do you feel now, looking at their faces?” Ray asked as I scanned another photo album.

“No one is on Earth anymore.”

“Would you like to see them?”

“My parents, yes,” I moved on to scanning the books on the shelf, Ray watched me with interest. “I remember these books. I printed out the manuscripts on my printer and gave them to a bookbinding workshop. Then I drew pictures directly on their covers and signed the titles with a marker.”

“Rarity!”

“Come on, these are drafts. This shelf contains the collections of Larisa Kuzminskaya, my godmother introduced us, and Larisa was the first to recognize my talent. Dedications to Marina Tsvetaeva should be in the Tsvetaeva Museum library, we performed there. And these are my poems on the topics ‘No Death’, ‘Poet’, ‘In This City’, ‘April the Girl’ … It’s terrible! All these raw books are in the Russian Book Chamber!”

“You left a great opportunity for treasure hunters to dive into the sea of versions of your poems. Have you managed to edit everything planned? You said that you would suffer in the Astral World if you left your raw Self to people. Are you suffering?”

“No.”

“Why?” Ray never stopped torturing me. “Well, look further.”

“Prose about ghosts, early stories, including children’s ones. Reprints of ‘The Book of Secret Knowledge’ in the ‘Playing Another Reality’ series. Next …”

“Come on, I’m already very interested in what’s next!”

“It’s ‘Guardian Angel’, the novel you waited for so much. You got offended that in ‘the Book of Knowledge’ I called you a ghost. I promised you wouldn’t be a ghost in my ‘Guardian’. Then you came, and we were reading the third part together in the kitchen, how you had brought me to your Arbat, in the lair of the black magician. There was a chess floor, everything was black and white there. Do you remember the poem ‘Beyond the power of magicians’? You liked it, and this is ‘Nostalgia for Atlantis’, all the poems written to you.”

“Thank you, I appreciated it, although there are not all the poems dedicated to me! Back to prose, where I am not a ghost. What’s the title of the third part?”

“‘Seven seconds’? About the accident. I had the stitches just removed, and I was all in green and limping. You cured my ear, fed me strawberries and said that it would heal before the wedding,” I smiled.

“Would you like to return to Earth in a body, if, for example, the Higher Forces allowed us to be together, or I repented and stopped witchcraft, or to experience love again with someone else, a happy love, a mutual one? To dive headlong into it? The love you’ve written so much about both in prose and in verse, the one you have been looking for on Earth all your life?”

I thought about it and walked up to Ray. He stood at the window looking at me silently, as if asking me to pull out a card from the Tarot deck, a very important one. I hugged him, as once long before, when he had been standing in the same way at the window with the Tarot deck in his hands, waiting for me to pull out just one card.

“I don’t want to go back anymore. I don’t want earthly love, because it… doesn’t exist.”


***
Ouranoupoli


“Is it the 1st of January today?” I asked Dimitra.

“No, the 1st of November. The 1st of January is quieter!” she laughed.

We used to joke so, Dimitra estimated the time by comparing the current date with the virtual date in season or off-season, depending on sales.

“Sophia has gone! With Faith, Hope and Love to boot!” she reported not without pride. “The ship with tourists came half empty. A woman burst into my shop and shouted, ‘Sophia!’. I showed her the icon, she grabbed it, without even bargaining, paid and ran away. Such a strange one! She said her goddaughter’s name is Sophia. Tell me about the icon, please!”

“Sophia was born in the 2nd century on the territory of present-day Italy under Emperor Hadrian in a wealthy Christian family. She married a pagan, but he loved her so much that never even asked her to renounce the faith. Their daughters – Faith, Hope and Love – were brought up in the spirit of Christianity. Sophia’s husband died, and the pagan Emperor ordered the family to come to the palace. Calling each of the daughters in turn and promising sweet gifts, Hadrian invited them to renounce Christ. After refusing to accept paganism, the Emperor tortured the children and ordered them to be executed. Faith was 12 years old, Hope was 10, Love was 9. Sophia buried the decapitated bodies of her daughters outside the city and didn’t go away from their grave for two days, until her soul was taken to Heaven. They were canonized as Holy Martyrs. In the 8th century, their relics were transferred from Rome to an abbey in France, but during the French Revolution, the relics disappeared, and the abbey turned into a tavern. Although, they say, some of the relics were found in the 20th century. The feast day is celebrated on September 17/30. They pray to her for women’s happiness and love, for family reunification and the birth of children, but I think she is about Heavenly Love, Faith in the Higher Forces, Hope in God, about the Divine Wisdom and humility.”

“And I think, Alice, that… you live in a crazy city, in a frantic rhythm, while we live surrounded by icons in a remote village on the border with the Holy Mountain. It would seem, nowhere else closer to God. Well, aren’t you boring to come to us every year? I would have gone crazy!”

“This place gives the opportunity to step away from the vanity and talk face-to-face with Heavens. It’s just that you stay here every day and don’t realize grace. Back to Sophia! I like her rare icon in Kiri’s shop, ‘Sophia the Divine Wisdom’. It’s painted in two versions – my favorite is Kiev’s one, ‘7 Pillars of Faith’, celebrated on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin on September 8/21; the 2nd one is the Novgorod one, celebrated on August 15.”

“What do they look like? I’ll ask the twin monks to paint it!”

“Well, ‘7 Pillars of Faith’ is a powerful sevenfold icon, located in St. Sophia Cathedral. It depicts a Ladder of 7 steps: Faith, Hope, Love, Purity, Humility, Nobility, Glory. On the sides, there are 7 Old Testament Prophets and Forefathers: King David, Aaron, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Each of them holds holy things in their hands. They anticipate the birth of Christ as the Divine Wisdom incarnation on Earth. The Ladder connects Earth with Heaven, leads to the Temple, where the Virgin Mary in the ‘Oranta’ type, similar to the protective icon ‘The Sign’ with both hands raised up, stands in clouds on the crescent sickle-shaped Moon. Christ is depicted as a child on the tunic of the Virgin, blessing with His right hand and holding an orb in His left. The Temple has 7 columns-pillars with the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit in the images from the Apocalypse of John the Theologian: 7 candlesticks is mind, a book with 7 seals is wisdom, a stone with 7 eyes is advice, 7 trumpets of Jericho is strength, an eye with 7 stars is vision, 7 phials with incense is godliness, 7 lightning bolts is the fear of God. Above the Temple, there are 7 Archangels, each holding a sign of his ministry: Michael – a sword, Uriel – lightning, Gabriel – a lily flower, and so on. In the center above the Temple, there is God the Father and the Holy Spirit, as well as the inscription ‘Wisdom has built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars’, the word ‘House’ means the Virgin Mary. The Novgorod icon is completely different, is miraculous too. The Virgin Mary and John the Baptist stand on the sides of the throne of Christ. It’s interesting that the temple, built in 989, was dedicated to the icon, although the icon itself got into it only in the 15th century. They say that ‘wisdom’ translated from Greek into French means ‘Trinity’, right?”

“I don’t know French. Oh! Vasilios! Finally! This is Alice! And this is Vasilios!” Dimitra spoke in Greek and summarized in English, “I said that you are my friend and believe in God, as he does, and one day you’ll write a book about us. Vasilios offered to include our miracle in it. Scientists from the Greek Academy of Sciences are exploring the chapel of St. Theodora in the mountains of Greek Arcadia. The stone chapel, standing on the water, is sprouted with high trees, as if hairs were growing upwards from its walls and roof, but it doesn’t fall apart, despite the multi-ton weight of the trees. Theodora was a Byzantine martyr from a Peloponnesian village near Megalopoli. At the age of 17, dressed in men’s clothes, she replaced her sick and impoverished father, who couldn’t go to war. Theodora fought bravely and after the war decided to leave for the monastery, but a woman fell in love with her. After the refusal, she slandered Theodora, saying she was pregnant, and demanded their wedding. Theodora didn’t betray the secret so that her father wouldn’t be harmed, and she was martyred, asking Christ, ‘Let my blood become a stream, my body – a temple, and my hair – trees.’ Whatever people can do out of love!”

“No, Dimitra, slander is not out of love. True Love fulfilled Theodora’s wish!”

Dimitra translated my words to Vasilios, and he handed me the olives. I opened my wallet, but Vasilios shook his head categorically.

“He sees you different from others, Alice, and won’t take money, but asks you to pray for him. Oh, man of God, our Vasilios, God’s man! Take your olives and let’s go back! My husband doesn’t speak English well and might miss the customers!”


***
Tower of Ouranoupoli


I was sitting on the seashore, wondering what to do next, when I suddenly noticed a Ghost Ship slowly sailing from the islands towards the Holy Mountain.

“Lack of humility,” I heard, turned around and saw a monk. He was alive, and, sitting down next to me, he continued, “Humility is perhaps the only way to Salvation. A patient one can endure hardships and adversity, but won’t humble oneself and …”

“I am a ghost,” I whispered in surprise.

“Do you think monks cannot see ghosts? This Ship has been sailing the same route for hundreds of years, and each time it crashes at the foot of Cape the Killer, next to Karoulia. Its captain is one of the stubbornest ghosts in the world!”

“Is Karoulia the place where invisible hermits live?”

“It’s a wilderness, hard-to-reach place, from that side even pirates couldn’t approach the Mountain. The word “karoulia” means ropes, chains. There are caves in the crevices of sheer cliffs above the abyss, and the cells-huts on the ledges look like swallows’ nests. Most of the monks on Athos live in luxury, and those with strong spirit go to Karoulia. They fish from 80-meter cliffs, collect rainwater, since summer is the time of drought, it’s usually 50 degrees, and in winter it’s very cold because of the wind. On bare rocks there are ropes and chains for hermits to move, and winches for food.”

“Are there many cells and caves there?”

“Nobody counted them, but 12 are the active ones.”

“12… as the invisible hermits?”

“And the Apostles,” the monk smiled. “Mostly Russians and Serbs lived in Karoulia, although the territory belongs to the Great Lavra. The cells cut off from the outside world by a gorge are called horrible. Monks come there for a while, having taken a vow – there are too many devils, they pull you into the abyss, but humility is a great thing, if you pray, you humble yourself, and they retreat.”

“Is it the abyss, the depth of which is equal to the height of the Mountain?”

“Has anyone been there? Measured? Whatever they invent about the abyss, even that some octopus the monster lives in it. It’s the abyss of the Devil, who can draw anyone even from a high rung of the Stairs of the Spirit. There are many devils there – temptations, especially strong at night – they throw stones, make you fear. However, like snakes, they cannot harm those who is strong in Spirit. Although, at night, out of habit, it seems, here it is, the Apocalypse, so stormy the weather is there! Humility and prayer give us a chance to reach Heaven.”

“Did Father Paisios live in Karoulia?”

“No, but his spiritual mentor, the Russian hieromonk Tikhon, did, and a disciple of the Russian St. Silouan the Athonite, archimandrite Sophronios, and the godson of Tsar Alexander II, monk Nikon. The monks of Karoulia are noted for their longevity. The Russian Hesychast monk Nil lived about 100 years. Father Stefan the Serbian was also special. His cell was burnt down, he moved into a cave. He talked to people from a distance in different languages and wrote a lot. One day pilgrims were drinking tea and a poisonous snake crawled in. He picked it up with his hands, said that God ordered to destroy the devil’s offspring, tore the snake into two parts and threw it away.”

“Did hesychasts live in Karoulia?”

“Joseph the Hesychast lived in a rock between Karoulia and Katounakia. His grave is located in the kalive of St. Harlampy. There’s a Tower not far from it.”

“Tower?” I wondered, looking up at Joice’s Tower.

“Yes, they are similar,” the monk smiled. “In that Tower, the monks used to hide icons, shrines and themselves from pirates. The dungeon connected it with other monasteries and the Tower of Ouranoupoli. I think the dungeon still exists, but it’s not open to everyone, as the Karoulia’s Ear, a place in the desert, the Ear of the Creator. Whoever whispers something into it, he is immediately heard by God directly. But, of course, God hears everyone, no matter where you are talking to Him from, the main thing is to speak with your heart like a child.”

“I saw a cloud over the Mountain, as if it were St. George the Victorious.”

“Yes, he’s often there! His image is in one of the ossuaries of Karoulia, he appeared to the hermits. There are some signed skulls in every cave. The monks take them and talk to them as if they were alive… Don’t be like the Ghost Ship, Alice. The Past cannot be changed, it must be accepted, let it go. Try to pray continuously so that no one can throw you down the Stairs. You never know who appears to you in what form. Ordeals are hard, as one’s lifetime exam. You may see someone you know and reach out to that one, and this is not the one you think, but a devil in one’s guise. Or someone asks you a worthless, at first glance, question, but the answer to it will be decisive. Let go of everything earthly, and the door to Heaven will immediately open.”