Confession of a Ghost. F.M. Dostoevsky award. Playing Another Reality

31 Before/10 After. House No. 5

Pluto

Somewhere in the Universe

As soon as I sat down on a cloud in House No. 5, right in front of me …

“I don’t want to see you!” I exclaimed and clung to the Guardian.

“Earthly reactions are awakening in you. You have to put up with me!” Pluto, in a long black robe, which covered his scorpion sting with the poison of pain, sat down on the cloud opposite.

“One has to face the truth,” said the Guardian. “When you remember on Earth what has happened here, on the Stairs, it’ll become easier to live!”

“I feel bad in Libra, the Sign of Venus,” Pluto sighed. “I stay here in exile with a whole generation, being a slow planet, floating in the clouds during 12—15 years. You’ll seek peace and balance, cooperation and justice, appreciating friendship, finding the best way out of crisis situations, following the path of minimum resistance, offering compromises. The Air element is conducive to increased communication. Any disharmony brings pain, and any bad peace is better than a good quarrel. Personal relationships play an important role, though you tend to give in. You don’t smell of selfishness, which is bad for your Self, but good for your soul.”

“Are you, by chance, in a degree of Saturn?” I supposed.

“In a degree that means a difficult childhood, a break with one or both parents,” Pluto continued calmly, “as well as people with excellent intuition, increased amorousness and sentimentality. Many of them belong to some clan. Mafiosi, for example. Plenty of useful contacts, connections, acquaintances. A quick mind is combined with cunning and cruelty, a desire to subjugate and suppress others. Duplicity and cunning, vanity, demonstrative disdain for enemies. Such people can wait for years without any murderous actions when their enemies themselves go to Heaven.”

“Stop, deceiver!” I exclaimed. “This is not about me!”

“A true warlock!” Pluto flashed his eyes and smiled. “It’s about me, that is, about the people you’ll be crossing paths in Sphere No. 5.”

“Will I fall in love with clan mafiosi?”

“Why not? In House No.5, I’m at a symbolic culmination, my Magic-Death-Sex-Big Capital energy is to be worked out in the Love-Creativity-Children Sphere. You can descend to the level of violent passions or create. Since I’m evil and strike your Sun, don’t expect mutual love. I’m a tank, either it is driving over you, or you move as a tank over those around you.”

“Evil Pluto is dangerous,” said the Guardian. “His energy will destroy you from the inside if you don’t pour it out into the world. He is a guest of Venus, and she loves arts. Direct your energy into creation of something, and your masterpieces will touch the masses. Pluto gives not only power over the masses, but fertility as well, multiplying everything on his way, exponentially.”

“Will I fall in love with a certain type of persons?”

“With Pluto despots and magicians,” Pluto nodded. “You’ll feel and attract men with a strong Pluto and the House of Death, Magic, Sex, Big Capital, such as murderers, mafia, sorcerers, sexual maniacs.”

“My Saturn is responsible for House No. 8, not you!”

“Officially, House No. 8 and the Sign of Scorpio are mine, Pluto’s. However, any planet can become a carrier of my energies, being appointed responsible for my Sphere of Interests. Your personality is Pluto in the hands and rings of Saturn. You are not Pluto in my pure form, you have my qualities. I’m in your House No. 5, that means fatal love with Pluto people, Pluto children, Plutonic creative works. They all will be stronger than you and like me, a magician-hypnotist who sets you on the verge of Life and Death.”

“Pluto with features of Venus?” I supposed.

“Yes, those who love beauty and art, something luxurious, or engaged in love magic – Pluto is magic, Venus means love. There are many options. You have Venus in House of Status, so your Pluto is a status one. The theme of creativity will be related to Pluto and Venus.”

“Death, Magic and Love?”

“Yes, darling. I’m the Lord of the Kingdom of the Dead.”

“What about my children?”

“Geniuses children, here is Uranus next to me, but don’t forget that I hurt your Sun, being evil. Problems with children. Your child will start poisoning your earthly body while still in the womb, putting you on the brink of Death. One day, there will be a complete break in ties or the loss of children, their death. However, neither children nor lovers driving over you as tanks can kill you, since your Sun, I’m in opposition with, is stronger than me, Pluto, and it’s not me in charge of your Death.”

“What are your friends among other planets?” I asked darkly.

“We are not friends with Mars, thus inclining your men to violence, power, extremism, aggression, criminal inclinations, cruelty. At the same time, we give you an iron will. We get along with Neptune, it’s a direct path to art and to the stage. Pluto is a chic player and actor, and the connection with Neptune means freedom of speech, rich imagination and clairvoyance, the ability to penetrate the Heavenly Spheres. Possessing my magical power and attraction to Another Reality, you’ll come to Neptune the Key Keeper, and he’ll open the door to the Subtle World for you.”

“So will I be able to come here during my incarnation?”

“You will, if you want,” Pluto winked at me.

“What area of my life are you in charge of?”

“House No. 6, Health and earthly Work, Servicing, everything that distracts from spiritual development.”

“Will my work be related to Death and Magic?”

“Or to the subjects of Sphere No. 5. You’ll serve your Plutos, work for them. You’ll love your work, diving your heart and soul into it, treat projects as if they were your own children, working real miracles, but…”

Suddenly, Pluto stopped talking and magically pierced me with his gaze.

“The Grape Picker!” I remembered horrified.

Vindemiatrix instantly appeared in front of us. She grinned haughtily, taking Pluto by the arm, and silently led him away.

Library of the Universe

“Listen, Guardian, why are there so many incarnated here?” I asked thoughtfully in the Reading Room, examining those around me.

“They are looking for Knowledge, hints, advice, and someone get here subconsciously. You’ll be able to come to the Library too. In a dream, for example.”

“Will I be aware of reality in dreams?”

“With such passport not only in dreams!”

The book opened at the page with the story “Coffee”. A woman married by convenience committed a double murder, having poisoned herself and her husband’s mistress, who, not having yet realized her sudden death, tried in vain to shout to her beloved man.

“He doesn’t hear us, but life after death exists indeed.”

Love

Moscow

I got into the room with my things through the window and found on the windowsill a rosary with a silver cross engraved with St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Yes, I remembered, there was a prayer on the reverse side. I bought two pairs of rosaries on Athos, with the Wonderworker for my son, and the second one with Scales … for whom? An alarm clock on the windowsill with frozen hands. How many years before? When did the Time stop there? There were icons on the wall, including the Prayer for the Chalice. Why had I closed them?

“Hello, Alice,” Ray appeared on a bag of things.

“Hello,” I sighed sadly. “Why can’t you give me a hint? You’ve been living in the Astral World for a long time, and it’s only the 10

th

 day for me!”

“Look at the icon of the Stairs. The angels are silently praying aside. The devils are dragging to Hell. As you understand, I’m far from an angel, but you are much more profitable for me in Paradise! No one will make the choice for you. Isn’t it your decision not to remember? Think about the deadline!”

“Why until the 40

th

 day? On the 40

th

 day, is it either to Hell or to Heaven?”

“No, you can be stuck here for years, but to finish the matter, you have time only until the 40

th

. What’s the difference between 40 days before and after? You’ve known it very well since childhood.”

“Since childhood? Why did I have to think about death as a child?” I almost cried from impotence, and Ray hugged me and abruptly turned me around to face the bookcase with photo albums on the bottom shelf, but all my mental attempts to pull out at least one …

“Who is easy without a body?” Ray chuckled. “There may be no other way out of here. Scan from a distance!”

“Ah!” I exclaimed from insight, recognizing bags with things in one of the pictures. “Until the 40

th

 day, you can’t touch any stuff of the dead! There, in those bags, the things of the deceased were gathered, I don’t remember who he was, but I remember the bags! So, my case has to do with the stuff within this flat, these things? How shall I sort them all out to remember in time?!”

Ray shook his head and went to the windowsill, looking thoughtfully at the rosary with St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

“Perhaps he helps you in creating a small miracle. Fly to him, ask. You visited him once. There are two options now – an easy one and a hard one, the second is more useful.”

“The simple one is to move to his relics. Is the hard one to go back to him the very same day in the Past?”

Bari, Italy

I opened my eyes, kneeling on the stone floor in front of the grate, behind which there was a marble tombstone, hung with lamps, with the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, stolen in 1087 by smart citizens of Bari from the Turkish Lycia. At that time, the Venetians went for the relics too, but the Bari people were ahead of them, having carried out 4/5 of the relics, the Venetians took the rest and placed it on the island of Lido, appointing St. Nicholas as the patron of Venice along with Mark the Evangelist.

The liturgy began in Russian, priests from the Metochion in Bari often served there. Having placed on the lower ledge of the shrine the oil and the silver ring with St. Nicholas bought in the local icon shop, I opened the Akathist. The space near the relics in the small crypt in the basement left part of the Catholic basilica was as if electrified – facing the shrine, you found yourself in a stream that passed you through, from the relics to the niche with the image of the Saint, behind your back, where people left notes with wishes. St. Nicholas used to help travelers and orphans, people who had been slandered and innocently convicted, students with studies, girls with marriage, and two years before, he had saved me in an accident, but not only he.

Having read the Akathist, I reached the shrine with my hand to take back my ring and oil, went to the niche and left my wish note written on a piece of paper. After the liturgy, I left the basilica and safely took a step away from Me in the Past on the square, but followed her until the moment she disappeared in the Patriarchal Metochion of St. Nicholas on Corso Benedetto Croce, 130. How could I end up there?

“What did you feel and think about when you merged with yourself at the relics?” Ray asked, appearing nearby suddenly. “Did you write a note about love? Do you remember what way the Wonderworker brought you to him?”

“In my mind, in the Past, there was a thought he had saved me in some kind of accident.”

“Well, now it’s not about the accident, although it was somehow related. You were supposed to fly to Venice, by the way, to his relics. What a struggle between Venice and Bari! Instead of Venice, you were suddenly sent to Bari. The chain of events you saw in the Tablets once again and wrote down in the form of a novel broke apart.”

“Really? And why?”

“It was one of the Future scenarios leading you to an early return to Heaven. Your prayers were heard. The Space started changes, each link in the chain collapsed, one after another. It would seem a small detail to begin with – the Prime Minister didn’t come to the opening of something. As a result, the person who was going to fly with you to Venice… Well, don’t you remember? So you stayed with your delegation in the Patriarchal Metochion. By the way, your photo, by the curator of the trip from Bari, would seem to be an ordinary photo of a girl at the autumn sea against the Monopoli Tower, but in the end… A new chain of events formed instead of the broken previous one could have led you to a completely different scenario.”

“Could? You’re talking in riddles, Ray. What happened next?”

“What you wrote in your note to St. Nicholas. People formulate desires at random, and those tend to come true exactly as they were worded.”

“I haven’t seen my desire, Ray. She, I mean me, threw a note, written in advance, already crumpled.”

Ouranoupoli

“Alice, are you not tired of resting yet?” Kiri’s father exclaimed, hugging me at his counter as I returned from my Akathist reading at the border. “Why don’t you help me sell ice cream? Maybe you’ll meet your prince this way!”

“Princes are good until they marry you!” Kiri laughed. “Pray to St. Nicholas, he made girls married even without money!”

“Yes,” I nodded, “they depict him with bags of gold coins in Bari. He threw them through the window to a poor woman whose daughters were not married because of the lack of dowry.”

“It’s important to be soul mates,” Kiri’s father winked at me. “Real happiness is not in gold. Here are icons, for example. Do you like icons in gold? Neither do I. It’s not jewelry! If you want gold, go to the jewelry store, buy rings or chains, or order gold sticks in the bank. An icon is the soul of a Saint, looking at you. The soul doesn’t need a frame of earthly gold.”

“And who else of the Saints helps with the marriage?” Kiri asked. “I’ve heard about St. Catherine for the Catholics.”

“In Russia, they venerate St. Xenia of Petersburg. Holy fool, born at the beginning of the 18

th

 century and canonized only in 1988. After the death of her husband, she began to say that she was he, as if she were dead, dressed in his clothes and responded only to his name. She donated her house and wandered the streets. At night she was building a temple, bringing bricks into it. Having received the gift of prophecy and healing, she helped women with grooms and children. A chapel was built over her grave. Pilgrims try to take a piece of land with them. Xenia helps my godmother all her life. My godmother’s birthday is on the 7

th

 of June, and Xenia’s memorial day is on the 6

th

. The godmother turned to Xenia with housing, job and other issues. The people who came to help her were called Xenia.”

“Wow! I wish Xenia helped us with sales! Icons were not sold within Mount Athos in the Past, and now there are shops in every monastery. Pilgrims buy icons there, although we sell the same icons cheaper. Could you, like Xenia, give away all your earthly possessions?”

I took a step away from Me in the Past and sighed, “All our earthly possessions are our Memories.”

Courtroom in the Universe

The Mist was enveloping my Consciousness. The Moonlight Sonata was pouring without interruption. There or inside me? It ended and started again, ended and started again, it was endless… The left bowl of Scales outweighed the right one again. The devils made a joyful noise. An old woman came up to the Scales through the crowd. She said to have shared her grief with me once when I returned from Athos. Her daughter, called Alice as me, gave birth to a dead child. Frames were projected onto the screen. The woman came to me, and I gave her the icon of the Belt of the Virgin, a piece of the blessed Belt, the only one I had then, the icons of Alexandra and Catherine for her second daughter. The woman put her “Thank you”, a heart-shaped solar ball of energy, on the right bowl, and the Scales became swaying in search of balance.

The Mist, everything was in the Mist, even Joice’s voice reading to me in the Tower about the Apostle Peter. A boy appeared at the Scales. Strange, I didn’t want to see him, who was he? I couldn’t hear his words. There were dark frames on the screen, and I fell into them, into the night full of the Moonlight Sonata. We were driving in a car in complete and oppressive silence, and I broke the silence with a cry, “Talk to me!”

And Time stopped, we drove for a long, long time, looping through the labyrinth of the streets in the subconscious. I was talking to him, but not that and not worthy to talk about. We had to pass just a couple of houses, but we drove, turning left and right, as if diligently trying hard to avoid the same sore spot. He felt everything inside. He was not like… who? I didn’t want to remember anything! The Athos rosary appeared on the screen. The boy at the Scales kept talking. I didn’t hear his words, but I had given him a book he would hardly read, although he was in it. Who was he? The Moonlight Sonata was getting louder. Some letter, a cafe and coffee, he talked to me fiddling with the rosary, about … who? I was silent, and he said, “Talk to me!”

Joice’s voice in the Tower, reading to me about St. Peter, came from the Mist. The boy at the Scales put his “Thank you” in the right bowl, turned around, looking for me, and having found, for some reason said “Sorry”, disappearing.

A woman in black, with white hair, appeared and hugged me crying. Her mother seemed to have died. “You will pray for us all on Athos, and everything will be fine, everything will be fine with us!” The next day I was leaving for Athos. That icon emerged out of my memory as well as memorial notes about her mother to the Athos monasteries, which I passed through pilgrims early in the morning on the pier along with donations. The woman went to Scales and silently put down her “Thank you”. Her face doubled, while the Moonlight Sonata was getting louder and louder. On the screen, she was reading my book with a poem dedicated to her. I didn’t remember which one and what it was about, but there was the word “Love” in it, and I heard her voice, “Talk to me!”

At the same time, I heard Joice’s voice in the Tower, something about the keys to Paradise held by St. Peter. The Mist filled the Court so much that I couldn’t distinguish anything anymore, the Moonlight Sonata displaced all other sounds and voices and abruptly… broke off. I opened my eyes in Joice’s Tower.

“It’s dawn. You have to go, Alice!”

30 Before/11 After. House No. 5

Girl with violets

Somewhere in the Universe

I noticed a girl gliding towards us through the clouds. She greeted me and handed…

“Violets?!” horrified, I looked at the Guardian in hope.

“I’m daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, the highest manifestation of Saturn, Pluto’s wife, the goddess of the Kingdom of the Dead, Persephone, or Proserpine,” the Girl said. “They knew me back in Babylon as Nibiru, and the Zoroastrians called me Daena. Pluto kidnapped me when I was picking violets. I live either with him or on Earth. He gave me a pomegranate seed to taste so that I would always remember death and return to his Kingdom.”

“Proserpine belongs to the light spectral class,” the Guardian consoled me. “She gives a unique chance to open a secret door on Via Combusta, I mean the Burnt Road.”

“Does Proserpine mean Death?” I supposed.

“I’m for radical transformation,” she smiled, “rebirth, transition to another level. The call of the Higher Forces for the constant development of the Spirit. Striving for the Absolute, purity and impeccability. I’ll encourage you to move up, to work on yourself continuously and systematically, not allowing you to stop. As soon as you get stuck, I’ll immediately provoke something. Of course, such people don’t feel easy on Earth because of the increasing demands not only on themselves, but also on others.”

“If you implement the energy of Proserpine, you’ll become a professional with the capital letter,” the Guardian added. “In extreme situations, when everyone refuses to take the hit, signing the own helplessness, you’ll be able to handle it.”

“You need to systematize information scrupulously and fundamentally,” Proserpine continued, “and improve yourself in Sphere No. 5, plunging into it with your head, climbing your Stairway to Heaven. I usually patronize the fundamental sciences, complex analytical works, the creation of global systems, medicine and genetics. However, if one is a magician by passport, I push to work with the Subtle World – alchemy, astronomy, magic, the study of posthumous states… As for workaholism, mathematical and analytical abilities and structuring, I’m Saturn-like and can’t stand lazy people. Saturn works in the earthly area with the majority, in your case he is oriented to the Heavenly, while I focus exclusively on the Heavenly. We give you a great potential for spiritual growth. Your Saturn has a Plutonic character, I’m Pluto’s wife, and we both are in the Sphere where your Burnt Road is located.”

“What kind of road is that?” I asked.

“Both realities, Earthly and Ours, are combined on it, and there is the Transition Point there, the door that breaks the Circle. People don’t notice it usually. The task is to find the door. Believe me, the three of us, Saturn, Pluto and I, as well as your Selene and Sirius, will act together and exclusively for the good! As a result of the incarnation, through a deep transformation, you need to stop being dependent on the earthly psychologically, to let go of all attachments to earthly pleasures and passions. Until you begin to let go of the transient and conditional, I’ll be poisonous with you, but one day the Light of Truth beyond the Time Space will be revealed to you.”

“To spur me on, will you also take something away?”

“I’ve been wandering in the Sign of Libra for a little less than a century, this position is not your personal, but a collective one. In the worst case, the concepts of Good and Evil are confused, people appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing, passing off black as white and vice versa. You’ll be surrounded by such people. I hope you won’t become like them. In general, it’s a sign of the transformation of human relations. My degree is more individual. You’ll be distinguished by altruism, sacrifice, many talents, kindness and modesty, craving for the transcendent, the ability for great deeds. Unfortunately, people use your kindness for selfish purposes, especially higher-ranking ones. Parents have an important place in your life, perhaps just due to the fact that …”

“Where is my mother? Why haven’t I seen her yet?” I asked sadly and almost hopelessly.

“Still ahead,” the Guardian patted me on the shoulder.

“As a child, on the eve of discovering your magical abilities, you’ll write a detective story, and your mother will take it to read to her employees. You’ll conduct mysterious investigations with classmates, prefer movies with detective topics, read Agatha Christie. Later you’ll visit Sherlock Holmes’ house and the Platform 9 and 3/4 in London. The thirst for unraveling the tangle of everything hidden and mysterious is your guiding thread to our World, don’t get stuck on detectives! There’s Markeb, one of the stars of the Argo Ship, about 30 minutes away from me. This star inclines one to secrets, magic or to deep religiosity, travelling for knowledge and enlightening people.”

“Secret Knowledge!” said the Guardian. “While magical practices will throw you off the Stairs into the realm of black spirits, making you a hostage of the abyss of the Lower Astral.”

“However,” Proserpine sighed, “everything that concerns Love, Children, Creativity, you are attached by heart to, will bring you suffering – death, loss, sudden breaks in relationships, collapse of plans. Pluto has a colossal force of mental pressure, unlike Mars, who has a physical force. Pluto humiliates your Self, grinding it into powder. The Grape Picker and I will take everything and everyone away in order to avoid attachments to the earthly, for the sake of your soul’s transformation into spiritual being. I’m at the distance of 150 degrees to Venus, it’s called quickens and means an abrupt (!) transition to a qualitatively different level of Consciousness, due to instant liberation from something or someone, including their death. Love is a wonderful stimulus for bright creativity. My square to Saturn will put your Self into a corner. You won’t be able to influence the events in any way, but they won’t be your fault. To get out of the corner, take non-standard actions and transform earthly love into heavenly love. Given the terminal degree of your Venus in Piscis, which guarantees Universal Love, we’ll succeed!”

“Thank you,” I whispered, “you are all very kind to me!”

Library of the Universe

“How far is the Burnt Road with the Door to Heaven, Angel?”

“The first turn to the right after your meeting with Uranus and someone else.”

“The Assistant of my Death, Mr. Uranus, is he also in House No. 5?” I asked sadly as I moved to the Reading Hall.

“Anyhow, he can’t escape from the Circle!”

“Is he evil too?”

“Good and Evil are relative concepts. Hardship and losses on Earth should purify the soul as the fire of the Holy Spirit. You, the human being, will find something unfair. You will think, ‘Why?’ I advise you to ask, ‘What for? What’s the purpose?’”

The book opened at the page with the story “The Stranger”. A girl, married to a foreigner, lost husband in an accident and remained alone in the foreign country, with neither job no money. Ironically, a man who fell in love with her, should have died instead of her husband, however…

“Never give violets to anyone! They are certainly beautiful, but… according to legend, people used to place them in coffins of prematurely dead young girls. They say Persephone was picking violets when Hades took her to the Kingdom of the Dead.”

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