The Light to the Outside World

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Their first meeting had led her to experience an unexpected connection. The man she called RaBear, the host at a party she recently attended as part of her journalistic responsibilities, had made advances to which she was receptive, however, when he invited her to supper and to attend a public seminar by a visiting friend she was hesitant.

She shared her concerns with her colleague and friend Marie, “ This guy has just lost his wife and he is vulnerable. Or maybe he is just playing the field. I am torn between feeling like I am some kind of opportunistic predator or an unaware victim, but there is something about him that inspires trust and draws me like a magnet.”

Kat shared more of her various concerns that ranged from his obvious superior intelligence, his position as Director, their age difference and their different backgrounds. He was part of the intellectual aristocracy and she was a commoner, a working woman. However, she could not help but replay how she saw his eyes send sparks that had pierced her heart. The impact of the chemistry she felt during and after their first meeting had grown as he shared a depth of information that offered her glimpse into the ‘outside world'. She still felt the memories cause a unique pulse within her.

Marie grabbed her friend by the shoulders and encouraged her to be brave and move forward with her life. Kat had experienced a heartbreak that was not as romantic as RaBear's losing a beloved partner to a disease. Her husband left her for another woman, how held promises of fewer commitments, more rewards and less threat to his ego. She had managed. She was able to raise their daughters on her own and her job provided sufficient satisfaction and challenge. Although she was used to trudging on the treadmill of work for survival, her interest to continue to develop and learn about the world had stayed alive.

For a number of years, her grown daughters had been flitting from the nest. The reality was that she would soon be alone. In the end, it was their comments that encouraged her to agree to the date. They repeated what she had told them growing up, "Calculate the risks of going outside your familiar comfort level before looking at the other world. It will have associated unknown changes that must hold and advantage compared to the option of staying the same." Kat calculated it was worth going out with RaBear.

They went to her favorite Chinese restaurant. When she got up to go to the restroom, she felt his eyes drink her in. When she returned, he said, “I had not noticed how lovely your body is. When we first met, I was lost in your eyes.” Kat was somewhat taken aback but did not miss a beat and quipped back, “ They were just reflecting what I saw in yours.”

He had taken her hand and expressed how happy he was that she would join him. Then, looking up from under his lowered eyes he asked, “ Did you think you had to dress like a nun tonight?” She laughed saying. “I did not want to give you the wrong impression.” His response was simple, “That would be impossible.”

She took control of the conversation and tried to remain on neutral ground. She asked him to remind her of how a Cardano grill worked, a story he had shared on the first night they had met. He responded, “The grill is used to reveal secret messages hidden in plain sight. When a piece of paper with holes cut are placed on a given page in a given book, the windows reveal a message in plain sight."

Kat said, “That’s what I thought. It seems to me that the internet windows provide a reverse Cardano grill. You can use one word or term and then get a view of what it means.”

RaBear smiled. “You are a clever woman. I used exactly the technique you described to locate a number of treasures. Let me explain."

Kat was wary to accept compliments. Often they were used for manipulations. However, as Robert spoke she recognized he was speaking to her as an equal. As he continued, she appreciated how his outlook reconfigured her understanding of more complex mechanisms at play.

" I supervise research involving nanomaterials. We are particularly interested in the Buckyball, made up of carbon shaped as 20 beveled hexagrams and twelve pentagons that have 108-degree angles. Buckyballs are found throughout the universe and are thought to have transported the elements of life to Earth. They resemble the cells in a beehive. The mathematical genius of how bees form hives have been the inspiration for mankind throughout civilization.

"Beehive huts were prehistoric shelters that still stand on the Dingle coast in Ireland, in the Urgup Valley of Turkey's Anatolian Plateau, at Tepe Gawra in present day Iraq, and Aleppo in Syria. Respect for hexagonal cells formation is as ancient as bees. The six-sided cells of a hive, that includes the seventh interior hexagram in the enclosed center makes a lot of sense. The staggered six-sided cells of a hive, that includes the seventh interior hexagram in the enclosed center, optimizes packing."

"And to think” Kat commented, I always thought a hex was something a witch did! Little did I think those three letters had such a history. ”

“Indeed." Rabear added, " Hex comes from the German word meaning evil spell or witch. The hexagonal structures are associated with luck and the supernatural."

Kat raised her hand to indicate stop. “I must tell you that I do not have a clue about what you are talking about, but you make it seem simple to understand. By the way, isn't this forbidden stuff to talk about?”

RaBear took her hand and kissed it. “ I compile information to understand what I call the hive mentality of humanity. I think with numbers. Number transcend language and culture. So do bees. They can add, subtract and even comprehend the concept of zero."

As he continued, she felt like she was some kind of time and space traveler as he explained first his work, then a deeper alignment of how the present resonated with the past and was a result of a laws of nature, that would continue into the future. She was aware and grateful for the road by which he took her to the outside.

"As you know, that map of Hesse led me to the outside world through a window that was more inside my mind than the window that looks to the outside world. Yet the two are connected.

"Hexagonal windows are found in the Lorsch abbey in Hesse, Germany. The abbey was founded around 764 during the reign of King Pippin, who was Charlemagne's father. He was said to have access to the traditions of the Mystery Schools of Egypt. Hesse was once a center or power, spirituality and culture in the Holy Roman Empire. The traditions are said to have been passed onto Rosicrucians, Freemasons and other groups that originated in Hesse. Rosicrucian are said to hold ancient wisdom, that is derived from the what is termed sacred geometry that is also found in religions. The use many symbols, including bees and hives."

"Are you a member of these groups?" Kat asked.

Not at all. I have been invited but I am already consumed with my work.

She continued,"When I think of FreeMasons and Rosicrucians I cannot help but imagine an Indiana Jones adventure with mystical societies and mystical magical symbols."

"Indeed. When I was told by the researchers who developed the synthetic radioactive transition metal, Hassium was named after the German state of Hesse, where it was discovered, I shared your sentiments. Hassium offers a model of a general concept or order that has no gender associations and thus neither a feminist or misogynist perspective. Hassium has an atomic number of 108. It is the heaviest element that has been studied"

"The number, 108, called a Harshad or Niven number is an integer divisible by the sum of its digits, called a 'joy giver'. It is a sacred, abundant number, where the sum of its divisors are greater than the number itself. This property has far-reaching effects that are transferred into mystical domains.

“Attaining the divine is thought to be facilitated by the use of 108 Mala counting beads. There are 108 Tai Chi moves that invoke the mystic energy of Qi, the life force and universal energy. There are 108 moves of Kung Fu locking hand techniques that match the 108 converging energy lines called Nadis, that leads to the crown and the path of self-realization. Along the nadis, there are 108 Marmas, meaning hidden secret windows, where intersecting energy lines of the life force formed by veins, muscles, joints, bones, ligaments or tendons open into transform the body’s biochemistry so it leads to spiritual growth and healing.

“The number 108 is significant in Vedic and Islamic mythology. There are 108 earthly desires, forms of delusion or ignorance. The Bodhisattva asks Buddha 108 questions. There are 108 major names of Vedic gods and goddesses. There are 108 Sanskrit padas, which also means footsteps, or stages on the journey of knowledge and transformations of the soul to the centre of a temple.

“The number 108 also figures significantly in astromythology. The dancing Shiva is surrounded by a divine weapon, a ring with 108 serrated edges on two rows spinning in opposite directions. The Ashara or Holy Ghost is pulled by 54 gods pulling in one direction and 54 in the other and they churn the ocean of milk to produce the elixir of immortality. Vedic astrology describes 108 Navamsa that form every 3 degrees and 20 minutes, and cover the 12 zodiac signs.

"As I recall, the nine Vedic planets ( the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu, the northern and southern lunar node), move through the 12 ascendant houses around the Sun, in 108 cycles. Six, 18-year cycles of Rahu/Ketu take 108 years. Indian and Tibetan astrology speaks of 27 Nakshatras of constellations in the galaxy that cover the four directions in 108 days."

Kat noticed that RaBear seemed unaware that he was accessing his photographic memory. He continued to rattle off facts. "Mathematically, the sun is 108 times the diameter of the earth, and the approximate distance between the earth and the sun is 108 times the sun's diameter. The distance between earth and moon is 108 times the moon's diameter. From Earth, Venus forms a pentagram shaped orbit in which the internal angles are each 108 degrees. "

"Heraclitus said a Great Year, the period of one complete cycle for planets and stars to return to the same position, is 108,000 years. The numbers 108 and 1080, refer to respectively the time of a lesser and a greater divine incarnations Hesiod defined a generation as 108 years, the duration of man’s life on earth, and the period from birth to birth of the soul. Chinese cultures describe a creative, outflowing, yang period of 108 years, followed by a responsive, inflowing, yin period, that move like a wave in an outbreath and an inbreath. The 108-year cycle, is honoured in Rosicrucian societies."

I like to think of the number 108 as a fractal expansion of the six sided face of a buckyball. You have probably seen Escher fractals and Sierpinski sponges."

"God bless you" Kat chuckled. She explained her humour when he looked at her blankly. " You are not talking my language. I don't mean to be rude but the name sounds a bit like a sneeze.Your mind is always turned on. Do you have a memory chip in it?”

He looked at her saying “These facts support my hive mentality view that seems to be the reason I get paid the big bucks. I can’t help it. My sister says my brain is like a sponge.

Kat replied, “ probably with 108 holes.

Their meal arrived and soon they were off to the public lecture. The speaker and RaBear greeted each other. They were both quick and funny. During the presentation, the speaker said, “I would like to properly reference those who helped me," then he flashed slides of various pages of a telephone book as he added, "but there are too many.”

That splendid evening led to a relationship between RaBear and Kat that lasted a lifetime. As probability suggested, RaBear died first. Yet during the years they spent together, RaBear's eyes, that had been the window to a soul that could see outside what most view, remained open and sparked. RaBear had not only offered Kat her first glimpse of the outside world, but he had infused a part of his soul into her.

After his death Kat’s accepted the responsibility to apply what he had taught her about how to live in the outside world and share bits of it with the public. She gleaned the skills to move through difficult situations without being repressed or refused. She followed set laws of nature as her curiosity directed her to explore interdisciplinary beliefs, about the outside world. She embraced a creative freedom to realize herself, not for financial gain but to find and enjoy treasures that are far more valuable. By passionately accepting the human condition, the sad reality of death and the loss of not only the physical, but the spiritual essence of love, she learned how to accept the unexpected.

She looked past humanities weakness to try to define the divine. Instead, she saw how the divine and supernatural is attained by humanity in everyday experiences. The secrets of the outside world were revealed in myth, mathematics and knowledge that resonates life's lessons. She looked through the window and glimpsed at how some individuals are able to unite the fires within, then concoct their own personal magic and mystical translations of how light, stimulated during the day or at night, or within the human psyche or dreams, can arrange chaos into order.

In the years after his death, Kat arranged the coloured splintered memories of what she had seen with her own eyes, into a piece of stained glass. Stain glass windows are found in churches and sacred sites throughout the world. The rose window, also called a Catherine window has concentric spheres with four cardinal axes that represent the path of life. Light passing through the rose window can be laid onto a labyrinth. Following the path of the labyrinth can release esoteric learning. It is used as an initiation that facilitates telepathic messages of a Utopian kingdom, or unleashes forces that transform the surface of the entire planet and can destroy mankind.

In Barcelona, she saw how the rose window divulges the wisdom of Sophie’s Maze. The center includes the formations of the Pleiades and Orion constellation of stars around the Madonna and child. The glass translates light, that extends throughout the church, creating a form similar to the sephirot. The sephirot describes the paths that can be followed to attain the ten channels of divine creative consciousness through which the unknowable divine essence is revealed.

Kat formed her stained glass with words. She wove the words as light, that becomes the sound of a voice that rings a true harmonic in the heart. She let her memories recreate a reminder that the warmth of love and acceptance that reaches beyond expectations of myths and mathematics.

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. RaBear had shared an internal fire that let her glimpse at the Outside. Now, she was a mirror, who could reflect what she saw of the outside world that she had witnessed, into the inside world. Those interested in trying to decipher some of the hidden messages would have to choose to glimpse at the passing light through her windows. She could not control what conditions would optimize how people heard her words but she prepared the Cardano grill to let what she could transfer of RaBear's spark, light up the space seen through the window, Perhaps this effort of love could renew the fire in the heart and mind of others.