Torvold - A Story by Charles Coombs

As the cage of 13 miners decended into the dark mine shaft and the square of daylight above grew dimmer and smaller second by second, Torvold dropped his head before the light disappeared. He caught a glimpse of the the smudged tan workboots of a new miner. The cage of men was mostly silent as it slipped noisily into the dark. Coughing, muttering, a short burst of laughter over some remark as the platform sunk deeper and deeper into the cold earth. The cold air rushed up his brown jumpsuit and filled his nostrils and lungs. He coughed. Others coughed. The men shuffled and gripped the handles of their lunch pails. They had entered the Zone. The Zone. The descent was always the same for Torvold. A closing off of all that was precious to him. It was not right that humans should toil in the deep earth. The resigned look on all of their faces told him that every day of his life. The men burst out of the cage like released pigeons and paired off or walked towards the transporter alone. Torvold looked down the long stretch of track for the transporter returning a shift of men. This was his body standing beneath the earth. No sun. No wind. Hard sounds only. His wife's sweet smell and softness gathered around him. The finished shift of men ascended to the earth's surface less silent then when they arrived, while the new shift joined in with jokes and and chatter as the transporter ground the tracks beneath them slowly pulling them into the veins of the earth. At twenty-five he didn't think of himself as a miner. He needed to earn money. His wife and two girls were counting on him. Mining was temporary work. His small frame was not suited to the demands of pushing, pulling, and lifting. Love had delivered him to the cold wet smelly tunnels deep beneath a land that was dead and stripped of its life-giving meaning. The bodies around him were sour smelling and too close. The transporter was worse than the cage that brought him there. There was a certainty about the transporter while the cage seemed to hold the possibility of arriving someplace other than the Zone. It was a brief daily phantasy of Torvold's broken by the thud of arrival and the cage door screeching open, but it was not possible on the transporter. The older men on his shift seemed to belong to the work. The younger men denied any ownership by a job. "The money was good." "The money was good." "The money was good." Water trickled down his neck from above wetness. Torvold tightened his neck cloth and dropped his hard hat on his silky clean black hair. He worked the loader. The huge chunks of black coal falling into the empty containers from the hydraulic shovel were not connected to any meaning for Torvold. It was as if he had to do this work as punishment for something he had done. What was it? He had seen chain gang prisoners breaking up rocks, but they had committed a crime. What had he done? What had they all done working beneath the earth's surface in a wet, cold,and and foul place?. What was his heart doing in the coal mine? The empty life of this work, his body, his lungs, his muscles, belonged to someone else. His mind and heart were his, but his body belonged to someone else. He could not stop thinking about this at work. It made him a stranger amongst the others. They knew his thoughts. They could see it in his eyes. They preferred not be reminded. Torvold understood what could not be said and did not say it. "The money was good." "The money was good." The miners breaks were the only times Torvold felt human. Food seemed to lift the spirits briefly and the body welcomed it. It was still a conspiracy of the body to make more empty work possible. The weight of the earth above him. The deep beneath him. The black thickness around him was suffocating him. Christmas had just passed through the little village Torvold lived in. It's brevity was not noticed by the villagers because of its enormous impact on the the lives of everyone. The drudgery of everyday life vanished and and a veil was lifted from all that remained hidden the rest of the year. Food, dance, music, families, neighbors, song,and laughter rolled out across town and filled their empty coffers with hope however unlikely to last. The pleasures of Christmas engaged the miners for days after during their breaks. The mine was completely shut down for three days at Christmas. The peace of the village reflected the absence of the tangle of daily living and work. Torvold noted this change and brought it into the mine with him each day as a guiding thought. Could he have this large slice of life all the time? Two days after Christmas when life returned to necessary routines and the mine resumed its operation, everyone returning to work noticed a slight change in the air quality. It was brought to the attention of the company officials and an air quality test proved to be acceptable. "The money is good." "The money is good." The explosion sent a wave of air that hit everyone in Torvold's unit like ice shattering across their faces and then vanished. The dreaded stillness following the blast made every miner freeze in place. Then they immedately engaged their oxygen masks and waited again for more of what was unknown to come. It did not come. They immediately stuffed the opening into their unit with plastic sheets to prevent gases and smoke from entering should there be any. Noone spoke for some time. Water dripping from the ceiling punctuated the silence. Torvold began to feel lost. What good is the money if I lose my life? He began to cry and controlled it. The other men where beginning to move and speak though their oxygen masks. Angry men. Frightened men. Regret. Fear. Loneliness. Dread. Acute listening to all of the sounds in the mine became heightend. With each passing hour the sounds changed from big sounds to ticking sounds, sliding sounds, and imagined voices. As the oxygen tanks emptied, some men wanted to leave their unit and take their chances with the gases loose in the tunnels. Quarrels developed and when the plastic was ripped off the deadly gases and smoke rapidly moved in. Panic circled Torvold and fighting broke out without reason. The men were cursing and tearing at their clothes. Their oxygen masks transformed the 13 men into unrecognizable creatures threatened and afraid. Some standing. Some sitting. Some crawling on all fours. Were they God's children? Wouild a kind God put men beneath the earth to die alone? Torvold saw the moon rise full and white as snow. How could this be? He saw shadows running across a field. Dogs were chasing each other or something. The church doors were open. He couldn't tell if people were coming or going. His dead mother was sitting on a log looking at photograph she had removed from her purse. His wife was standing in an open field holding his daughters close. Men were walking around and stopping to talk briefly and move on. Torvold felt his body. He was alive, but this was happening. The other miners seemed to have become smaller. They were all sitting. They were all silent. They were all dying. He looked at them and they looked away. Noone spoke. Some men were sharing small pieces of paper and writing notes. One man called out "fuck" a few times and stopped. Torvold breathed as shallowly as he could. He did not move. He did not speak. They could not eat in fear of the gases. It was silent. The miner who broke through the plastic seal did not come back. The mine lighting flickered. Torvold became drowsy. He dreamed of his church minister in the pulpit when he was a boy. The preacher was waving his arm and yelling at him. The congregation was looking at him as he shrunk down in the pew. His mother was sitting across in a different pew with his brother. He was alone. Suddenly a flock of twelve sparrows rose up from the alter and silently flew over the congregation,the beating of their wings filling the church with a gentle fluttering sound. He woke up and another man had plunged into the mine shaft puncturing the plastic cover again. The few men who had any strength to move crawled over and tried to seal the hole. Most of the men were lying close to the ground. Several were silent and still. The warmth of a small hand stirred him into semi-consciousness. He did not open his eyes. He was in bed. It was warm. He heard voices. Was he dead or alive? The full moon rose again and moved towards him. As it came closer he wanted to run away, but it pulled him towards it as it advanced finally surrounding him. The warm hand on his wrist remained as he drifted off into a deep sleep. Fide et amore

Global Spiritual Awakening In July 2007

The story below is remarkable and moving. I looked at the authors website and I am willing to participate in her July global event. It can do no harm.


The Story
We are now in a time when natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidal waves are dramatically affecting our planet, and our lives on it. We now have the power to destroy this beautiful Earth quickly, with atomic power, or more slowly, with pollution and devastation of our resources, and overpopulation. I have been guided to tell you that we also have the very real power to save this planet, and to make it a loving and healthy place for ourselves and for future generations. Please take a few minutes to read my story. It will hopefully save our Earth.
I have a story to tell you that I know will be hard to believe in parts, but it has happened to me, and I cannot erase or deny any of it (though at times I wish I could). I am a "normal" woman who grew up in simple yet chaotic times. I am much like you in most every way. I always thought I would be the last one to have a miracle occur in her life, much less two miracles, and all that has happened since. Therefore the tale I tell could be of your life, and not mine. But seeing it is mine I guess I was meant to tell it.
What I want to establish first, is the fact that miracles do happen and they happen to people like you and me. What we need to make these miracles happen is to open ourselves to the communication that is all around us every day. Communication not from this world but from the world of our creator, the cosmos and the universe. The message comes from a distance, but you find it by going inside and believing. We can all create miracles within our lives, and that is one of the main points in writing this for you. I have no special tricks. Simply open yourself to the possibility that what I tell you is possible and that it is available to every person.
I will refer to God in many ways throughout this story. This is strange for me to refer to God in any sense, as I believed he had abandoned me a very long time ago. But I will refer to a prime creator of the cosmos and the universe, along with this earth that we live on every day. I call God the Prime Creator, because I want all those to understand that this story is completely unbiased and unprejudiced to any affiliation with any religion, and the God of my understanding is not only an earthly God, but a universal God. I will also refer to God as mother earth, Gaia, which I came to learn through this journey is the female piece of God. As in everything that is in our universe, you must balance darkness with light, peace with war, and recognize the two faces of God, the female and the male. We are all pieces of this Prime Creator. We are a part of God.
Two miracles happened in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. My son and I drowned in a flooded marsh and not only lived to tell the tale, but we are better than ever. I was "dead" for fifteen minutes. I was told by beings of light how to save myself, and my small son. And I was given a message on how to heal the Earth.
As you are reading this I ask you with all my heart to open yourself to the possibility of what I say. I feel it is imperative that we unite this world as one planet with one common goal - to establish peace and prosperity for all, not just the select few who were blessed to be in the right place at the right time. We are entering a new phase of humanity and what I will tell you in this website will help us as a race to assimilate the changes that the future will bring.
I have not had God in my life for forty years. I did however, as a child, chase the possibility of God. I felt that those people who had undying faith were the lucky ones, and the fact that I believed in nothing made me the loser. As a child I often spoke to God, but never felt heard or connected. It took life throwing me into a flooded marsh and drowning me, to open my eyes to the reality of how much we are all connected to the Divine power. It is showing up now more than ever. You can go on the internet and find thousands of hits about the next phase of humanity, the era of enlightenment and the time of change. These stories are in our religions and in the stories of the ancient cultures such as the Mayans, the Egyptians and the Native Americans. We have all been waiting for the moment when things would be different, for surely God will do something to save us from ourselves. Well there is something in the works, but God is merely directing it through people like me, and it will take the faith of people like you to create the reality. Once again I am getting ahead of myself but in the messages I am receiving, I am being given a way for us all to participate in a healing of mother earth, and a launching of the human race into a time of health, peace and positive change. But for this to happen, you will need to sit in meditation for just one hour of your life.
I once heard in the star trek series "resistance is futile." I did not want to be a messenger for God, but when God wishes our awakening, it will happen. So now I will tell you the truth of what happened to me, after a car accident that occurred in Nov. 2002.
My son and I were travelling to a friend’s house for an afternoon of play, when disaster hit. My car was swept into a flooded marsh after hydroplaning. The car landed upside down in this boggy marsh, and sank to the bottom. I tried to open the car's windows, but the power windows failed and we were trapped inside. I spoke with my tiny son who was four at the time, and assured him that mommy would get him out. The car was filling up quickly with the cold murky water and I held my son's coat tightly in my hand, while I waited to be fully submerged. I hoped that I could open the door after the car equalized with water and we would swim out. My final words to my little boy as the water came over his head was "hold your breath honey; mommy will have us out soon". I watched him take a large gulp of the remaining air, and the water took him. When I felt the last air pocket escape the car I tried the door. It wouldn’t budge! The other door was equally stuck. I struggled with the doors several times, to no avail. We were trapped and going to die.
At this point I took Evan’s little body and pushed it over the seat, hoping beyond hope that he would find air. As I struggled to free us from this coffin on wheels, I realized I had to breathe. As I drank the deep breath of water into my lungs, the fiery feeling added panic to the moment. I wanted my baby back and I swung my arms feverously about in an effort to find his body. I couldn’t, and I needed to breathe again. That is when I heard a voice, a calm majestic voice, directing me to relax. This voice cooed in my ear, reassuring me that all would be well. I was infused with the knowledge that if I fought the water, my rescuers would not be able to revive me when they arrived. The voice said that if I fought the water I would drown…no shit I thought, I get a wise ass ghost on my deathbed. The voice continued to give me instructions about what was to happen, and that all would be well if I just followed the instructions. I relinquished myself to this voice from beyond, and passed quietly into the other side.
While on the other side I saw beings of light, who once again assured me that my son and I would not only get out of this car, but we would both be fine. They were definite in explaining that I must follow instructions implicitly and not lose faith in their words. I was told to have faith that I would be divinely directed, and I was.
It took my rescuers fifteen minutes to pull my lifeless body from that car, and another seven minutes of CPR to revive me. As my body bolted upright, I blurted "get my baby out of the car". Twenty two minutes had passed, the rescuers jumped back into the freezing bog to retrieve my son, knowing against hope, that he was dead. It took rescuers another five minutes or so to get my boy free from that car. His limp body was transported to the IWK Children’s Hospital, where he was immediately hooked to every machine known to mankind.
The team of emergency doctors and neurologists were waiting for me. They assured me that my sweet little boy was indeed brain dead, and in addition to this, his internal organs were full of blood. He was haemorrhaging throughout his body and his organs were non- viable. Things were the most bleak I have ever known. That is when the voice came to me again. "Have faith child." The doctors advised me to unplug my baby and let him pass peacefully, for even if a miracle happened and he did live, he would be a vegetable. "No quality of life", is all I remember thinking. Once again I heard the voice, "have faith". For that moment the doctors agreed to keep Evan on life support, but advised me not to hold out any hope. He had less than one percent chance of living and then he would continue to be hooked to all these machines for the rest of his life. Remember, I had no God, so I could not even call for guidance. It was in the quiet of my first moment alone, that I was given the instructions. "Follow the instructions implicitly", memories of the visions and the voice in the lake flooded back to me. There was someone there with me, I was sure of it, and I decided to listen carefully. I was instructed to rebuild my son’s aura by infusing his little body with the auras of others. Twenty minutes at a time was one of the first rules; for if it was longer, you would drain the aura of the giver. They instructed me to parade loving people through Evan's room, each depositing their own energy field into his lifeless body. They were to do this by connecting their flesh to his flesh and allowing their energy to run through his body, and then to give Evan their “gift." If they sang, they were to sing. If they were story tellers, tell a story, and so on. Infuse him with positive energy and your love and your talents, and this will revive him.
I proceeded against hospital protocol to send loving humans into my son’s room every half hour. They then followed the instructions and gave their gift of love. This procession lasted twenty four hours a day, for three days. Dozens and dozens of people came. They "camped out" everyday and every night; loving trusting souls infusing his lifeless body with fresh energy. The fact that I was able to convince the hospital to allow this unorthodox behaviour to happen was a miracle in itself, but on the third day, after 72 hours of constant vigil, my boy opened his little eyes and recognized me. He was back!!!
The doctors were baffled. They continued to tell me that he would never walk or talk or be a normal child again. However their words this time had no effect on me. The guidance and direction from my spiritual light beings had proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be fine; after all, my "friend" in the lake had told me so.
Within the first week Evan had recovered all his body functions, and by the end of the second week, he was running down the halls to the hospital playroom. This was indeed an incredible miracle. What had I done to deserve such reprieve by our Almighty Creator? I didn’t know nor did I care. I wanted to take my son home and be done with the whole nightmare. This is when I realized that I might be done with my light friends, but they were not done with me.
I continued to hear the voices and be directed with both visions and seeing auras. Needless to say, I was more than a little freaked out. As time passed I would ask "What do you want of me?" They would speak of the love for the universe and how things have gone terribly wrong. Humanity has spiralled out of control, and has lost its true connection to God and to this Earth. They want desperately for me to give the humans of this world a message from "beyond," that we have inside of us the power to unite this planet as one race with peace and prosperity for all. This power lies inside us all, and when combined with the loving energy of other humans, we can do for this planet what we did for my son. We can revive this Earth and catapult it into healing. With this healing will come a new phase of humanity. We will have a time of peace and harmony. All it will take is our intention, as a united group, and one hour of our time.
So as the voices and visions unravelled I was given the guidance of how to make this all happen. However it will take many of us on this planet to see to the success of the project. As they told me to rotate the humans through my son’s room, they have told me to unite humanity from every corner of the globe. Not every human, just representatives from every corner. We can do this. We need to unite enough people to fire the divine energy system of this planet and jump start it like we did with my boy.
This global project of loving intention is completely possible. Your intention to make it happen can change the outcome of this planet. I will discuss the details of the plan in phase three of this website. I will give you the directions to follow, and you will see how little it will take for you to become an ambassador of light to our home, planet Earth. I beseech you to join me when we fire the Earth grid on July 17, 2007 at 11:11 Greenwich Mean Time.
document.write(localTime);
— 04:11 (4:11 AM) in your time zone — and add your energy to this project. I promise you, just one hour of your time and you can help heal this planet, and help create peace among all people. My son and I are examples of the power of positive energy, and what humans are truly capable of when they unite with the intention of love. Love is the universal language of our world, and the world beyond.
Light and love be with you and welcome to the next phase of humanity; be part of the excitement and please join us.
http://www.firethegrid.com/

Earth Is Benevolent

Our little sphere of influence, Planet Earth, is benevolent. It is humankind that destroys life, plunders the Earth's resources, and men mostly, who are driving our kind to extinction. Our kind provided with a brain that has evolved into a thinking tool, using it unwisely will determine its fate.

This creature composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen has failed nature. He has taken his gift of life and consciousness and waged war on his fellow creatures. It is his awareness of himself that was to be the distinction between humans and lower forms of life.

He has taken ideologies and beliefs as his tools of aggression. He has sent his children to war. He has destroyed communities. He has ruined the lives of innocent people. He has planted hatred in the hearts where there was none. He has changed the destinies of people and nations.

What is man? A handful of dust. It is dust to which he will reuturn.