Wild Rides and Wolves With Red Roses

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Curves.

“Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?”

— Jim Steinman’s “Hot Summer Night”

“Come with me,”  I tell the man in my meditation. He’s not the wolf with the red roses.

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I don’t even look directly at this man but he’s close to me, on my  right, and there’s a strong familiarity  to his presence. Yet, outside the meditation,  I don’t remember who he is. Just a sense of twin flameness.

Earlier in the meditation, I’d managed to astral some- where. Not intentionally. Twice. Something happened the first time to scare me and I felt myself slip quickly back into my body. Odd sensation. Like a full-body shiver.

I’m not sure what scared me the first time but the second time, I  was watching a man I know or know of. I don’t think it was my ex. It wasn’t a relative. It wasn’t The Treat or The Jerk or The Know-It-All. Yet  I was being warned. I stood to his right and watched as he chatted with a woman. His date. Then he leaned in as she reclined and he kissed her  throat, then tore it out with his bare teeth and looked back at me, blood  dripping down his jaws.

I stumbled back and felt a painful whoosh as I rushed back into  my  body.  It  seemed  to  take  forever  to  re- integrate and then sit upright. I almost felt like The Wolf had come back with me. I did get the distinct feeling that this was a warning. He was a man I have not  dated or been involved  with but the possibility was there to be- come involved with him and I’d just been warned that he has a tendency to silence the women he chooses.

It took a while before I was able to relax enough to re-enter that  meditative state. This time, I was in something  that  felt  like  a  Disney  or Animal  Kingdom  ride mixed with an Indiana Jones adventure.  There were lots of people around, many I knew. The girls were with me at times.  And this man, this presence  by my side. I went through the “ride” the  first time on my own. Except it wasn’t exactly a fun ride.

On my  way  down  this  mountain  jungle,  I  walked limbs over gorges, climbed cliffs with vines and rope, tip- toed barefoot across slimy rocks above a raging river, and crawled  through  a  tunnel  that  ended  with  a  gate—a sheath of heavy rock—that crashed down intermittently on whatever poor souls were trying to get out of the tunnel to safety.

There were two of the crushing  rock gates. The first one stayed  up  long enough for 20 or so people to pass through,  then  slammed  down,  crushing  someone  who panicked and wouldn’t wait for it to rise again. I was able to get out just ahead of them.

The second gate, I waited for it to slam and rise again before I went through. Once passed, the gate started to close behind me. Those behind me put two big rocks at the bottom of the gate to force it open and tried to crawl under, but the rocks  were  simply  broken  and tumbled away and the people were crushed.

But I persevered and made it to the end.

Then I turned around and headed back to the top of the ride to  start it over, this time with someone by my side.

“Come with me,” I told him. “I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I know how to help people get through now.”

We went back through the ride backwards to get to the top. Along the way, I shouted to several people to keep to the middle path, stay off the  slimy rocks that would make them lose their footing and plunge them  into the river where they’ve be carried away and dashed against the  rocks. Some people changed their paths and found their footing. Others didn’t.

From below, we could see the second crushing gate, more bodies  decimated under it. That was where I felt most needed.

Inside the tunnel, I explained to the panicked people there that the  gate would rise again, giving them an opportunity, but they needed to be aware of the opportunity and plan their movements. I told the crowd not to rush the gate while it was closing but to wait for it to re-open.

That took a lot of trust on their part and many didn’t know or trust me and crashed right through. Some made it. Some didn’t.

I stationed two strong  people on either side of the door to go through first the next time it opened—myself and the presence with me. We’d be the first ones through but once through, we would stand on  either  side of the gate and help pull others through to safe footing where they could continue the journey. I’d been this way before, I explained, and I knew how to help them through. This time, the people behind us  agreed,  and we were able to help so many more souls through that gate.


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