Later, as I was talking with other students about this first lesson, I demonstrated kinesthetically what I was processing. I said, "If you center and ground -- get focused -- and then walk to the pear orchard... it's like this..." And I continued talking, as I drew them into the vision...It's a beautiful day, early autumn, sunny. I see the perfect pear tree -- I mean, that our energies resonate. There's a flash of a picture of "golden pears" - you know, mythical. And I say "no...real ones". And the environment shifts back to real pears and a real orchard. I walk up to the tree and ask if I may have one of its pears. The tree kind of trembles or shakes its lowest branch where there is a pear at my level. I reach to where that pear is, tightly focus on the pear and the tree and being right in that present. I pluck the pear from the tree and thank the tree. I take a bite, and it is so juicy that it drips some. I walk back through the orchard, and at some point, shift conscious focus and intent, and walk into the midst of my friends. They are curiously amazed, but they "see" how it can be accomplished and are now intent on doing that themselves. I sit down and finish the pear, quite overwhelmed by the experience, and exhausted -- and also busily trying to process what I just did. I needed to find a quiet place, so I got up and walked towards the back of the room. As I approached the wall, it was as if I knew that I could walk through it -- some energy doorway, or something. It's hard to describe that process. It was as if I knew that there were doorways that blended with the walls and that the doorways were only illusions, and that I could walk through as if nothing concrete were there, even though I couldn't see through them --as if what lay beyond them was as yet unmanifest, and awaited the conscious intent of the person walking through. So it was that -- without really thinking aloud, but merely seeking a quiet place -- that I walked through ... and onto a sandy beach: quiet, without people or vehicles or anything other than a quiet surf, seagulls, sandpipers, a few clouds, a soft breeze and softer sun. It was glorious and felt so good. It never even occurred to me to see this deed as abnormal or strange or "Wow!Look what I did!" It was as normal to me as walking from one room to another. I lay on the sand, soaking up the warm peace for a long time. After a while, a friend of mine walked into this landscape, and I watched it metamorphosize in a balance of our two intentions. The beach was still there, but it was more rocky, more boulders with crashing surf. It was a good place, but different -- more energized somehow; more active. We chatted for a while about the lesson, about school and stuff, when a third person emerged onto the beach. Then the scenery started changing even more and so I excused myself, because it was all too dissonant with where I wanted to be. I went back into the classroom, where it had gotten quiet, and sat against the back wall.
"You can go to your room, if you'd like," I heard a voice say next to me. Startled, I turned and saw the professor of this morning's class.
"My room?"
"Why, yes...while you're at school, you have a private room. Just envision it as you'd like, and go through a door, okay?"
"Sure..."
Wow! I hadn't even thought of that, I mean, that I could stay, that I could have a room of permanence, of my own, while I was here...