A friend warned me that once I stepped on board the Empire Builder in Everett, Washington, heading towards Chicago, my body would enter a portal and everything I’d ever known would disappear as if I only dreamed it.
While I love my esoteric friends, I often take what they say with a chunk of salt. This particular friend had been accurate eighty-five percent of the time, but she missed the mark on me finding a home in Port Townsend, (on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State). But then again, I wasn’t putting in the effort. The dream of living on the peninsula grew stale even though I still loved the place. Something bigger was calling to me and it was only a matter of time when it revealed itself.
I hobbled onto train hauling my three-foot by two-foot duffel bag and my smaller duffel bag with wobbly wheels as the attendant took me to my sleeper room. I’d spend the next forty-four hours with no Internet service and no vegan-gluten-free food on the menu. I wondered how I’d survive that grueling journey across what I thought were the most boring states in the west. But at least we didn’t travel through Wyoming.
Somehow I made it through the beige and brown landscape of Eastern Montana and the Badlands of North Dakota. But I fell asleep from the monotony. When I woke up the train had just crossed the border of Minnesota (home of my ancestors) and that’s when it happened. My spirit body walked through the threshold, just like my friend predicted.
While congratulations were in order for that moment, once I entered Brattleboro two days later, I stepped into a vortex of the darkest energy I’ve ever known. That too changed my life in ways I never would’ve imagined.
Welcome to the Green Mountain State…
belleauthor (Patricia Herlevi) 