Outlands Community USA
Website of the Outlands Community USA
11 03 09 How Sara and Roy got together
It was no accident that we posted this yesterday - November 3rd. Today is our 12th anniversary!
I want to tell the story of how Roy and I got together, in what you might call the definitive version. We'll be telling it in turns, he from his life and me from mine. For the both of us, it is a miracle.
- Sara Jane
Sara Jane: I grew up in the city of Louvain (or Leuven) in what is now Belgium. From what my parents told me, I was born in the year 1371 and died of the cholera in 1382. I was just a kid but by the time I was eight I was already doing a lot of work around our home, things that women did so that they would make competent wives. My father Piet was a tanner and a fuller, that is, he tanned hides and washed clothing. We were fairly well off for people of our time.
The big thing in the lives of everyone back then was the Church. The Church dominated every facet of everything that everyone did. We girls, and the women too, were constantly badgered to guard our chastity; girls were to save themselves for marriage, and women who were married were to be faithful to their husbands, no matter what. I grew up hearing this stuff about chastity and when I was probably four or five I asked my mother what the priest was always going on about. As we had goats and chickens it was normal to see them mating, and my mother showed me two goats going to town one day. "Boys will want to do that with you," she told me, "and you shouldn't, because it's a sin until you're married." I don't remember much else from this little lesson except to ask if the goats and chickens were all married.
As it was common to see animals mating in our world, death was common also. Infant mortality was high, and women often died in childbirth. I recall that our priest said that this was God's punishment upon women because of Eve having lead Adam into sin in the garden of Eden. One day I woke up feeling very ill and could not stop throwing up and (politely put) evacuating. I had trouble staying awake. My parents were very upset and they sent my brother for the priest. I fell asleep and when I woke up, everyone in the room was crying and carrying on. I looked down at my bed and saw my body there. I tried to tell my family that I was fine, but they couldn't hear me. It slowly came to me that I had died. But things were not what I had expected. There were no angels and no demons, and if there was a Jesus or God, they must have been busy elsewhere. After a while I gave up trying to get my family to hear me, it was especially rough for my mother. I had to get away for a while.
After wandering around the town for a while I thought to look in on the priest. Perhaps as a spiritual person he would be able to see me or hear me, and could tell me what was going on. Now I found that I could just think of a place and I was there! I was in the narthex of the church and went looking for him. It was late afternoon and I walked into his home. Talk about shock! He was laying on his bed with one of the village boys and they were doing what I had seen the goats and chickens doing. It took a while for me to understand that he didn't believe one word of what he had been saying about chastity and the evils of sexual desire. But once I did I was infuriated and I thought that if there was ever a way to get even with these holy frauds, I would.
This actually happened. I found that some people were very aware of my presence; some could actually see me and feel my touch. Eventually I found a monk who was alone in his chamber and I appeared to him as a beautiful woman. He knew exactly what was going on and welcomed my embraces. It was in that hour that I became a succubus. Only, when I had exhausted him, I left him with a burning sensation between his legs. I actually enjoyed this little encounter, but the after a short while my pleasure faded as I made a career out of visiting monks and priests and giving them what they wanted. This went on for more years than I care to think about.
One day I was sitting on a hillside when I noticed this huge, gentle-looking man sitting across from me. It came to me: he had always been with me, but I had simply never noticed him. The nearest parallel might be if you pass a building every day for years, and never really look at it; and then one day you see that it's being knocked down. So I asked him who he was. "I am Llam," came his quiet reply. "Who are you?" "I am your guide." I remembered from my days when I was alive, that the priest had told us that we each of us had an angel watching over us. Llam smiled and said, "That is partly correct. But I am a guide, not a guardian." I found myself telling him how unhappy I had become since I had died, and he really listened to me. When I had finished, he suggested that I just rest for a while and try to enjoy the things that I did when I was alive. It was my good fortune that a rabbit hopped across the hill where I was. I had loved them when I was alive! He was aware of me and I pet him for a litttle while. Then he went about his business.
I was able to rest like this but I would get drawn back to this awful business of going after priests and monks. Finally, I made a decision that I would never do it again. I don't know how long I was on that hillside, nor do I really know where it was, but I was there for a long time. I learned to take pleasure in life as it splayed about on the hill over the seasons, the blooming of flowers and mushrooms, the growing of trees, the rabbits and foxes and deer and hawks and other birds.
One day I was minding my own business, as best a solitary dead person can have a business, and I was hit with a wave of emotion. It was total and enveloped me completely, if it had been water I would have likely drowned. In this wave I heard a song, it was someone singing my name; and I heard a man crying our from the depths of his soul: "O Sara, if you are there, when you build your house, call me." I looked at Llam. "I'm going to find him," I announced. "I will go with you," he replied.
Roy: Fleetwood Mac had released the song 'Sara' some time in 1979 as I recall. I had taken to it immediately. Something about it just absorbed me completely and I had no clue as to why.
I was in process of getting out of a very nasty kind of fundamentalist Christianity, the kind that said that everything which we would like to do as human beings was a sin. I was not happy. I knew that part of my escape would involve using the psychedelics I had been using during the 1960s and had made a few experimental voyages. From the fundamentalist view I was totally drowning in a snare of the Devil, but I met no Devil - or God - and was learning of the intense and rich landscape whither I ventured.
I was not a good person in those days. I was self-righteous and nasty. I blamed all of my problems on everyone but myself. That kind of self-knowledge lay far into the future. On this one afternoon I had taken a large dose of Something; it was not a good day for whatever reason and I was having a bad trip. In retrospect I was probably acutely aware of my shortcomings as a person and was doing my best to evade them. Ah, but you cannot escape yourself for long! I lay on my bed, torn up with anxiety, crying my eyes out. I was alone in this journey. I had had music playing in the background, but I was so enmeshed in my miserable estate that I hadn't really heard much of it. Suddenly I heard the beginning of 'Sara' and I was able to focus on the magic of the song. As my world became smaller and smaller, I desparately cried out to Sara - whoever she was, wherever she was. Then I was inundated by my anxieties and sat up. I took a strong tranquilizer and fell asleep. When I awoke ten hours later I was as stupid as could be, and when I recalled my anxiety attack of hours previous, I just chuckled. Of Sara, and my outburst to her, there was no active recall. It was a summer afternoon in 1980.
Seventeen years later I was driving my truck down Route 206 south outside of Chester, New Jersey. I had changed - a little bit. I was still an angry and selfish person and was unable to love anyone in the way that I knew we as human beings are capable. But I was trying these days, and I had slowly become aware that after blaming my parents, my schooling and everything and everyone else, I was the one who had caused most of my problems. Such knowledge comes slowly to people who seem themselves as victims of the world; and it is even more difficult when you see yourself as a perfect human being. If there is a real insanity, this is it: a blindness to one's self, and I am as guilty as charged.
It was about 2:30 in the morning. I had an urge to do something that I never did: I turned the truck's radio on. For a few moments it was all static, and then loud and clear I heard the first few notes of 'Sara.' It all came back in those moments: the bad trip, the crying out to her, the depth of misery in which I had found myself. In the corner of my eye I saw movement in the passenger seat; the hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up. A little blond woman was dancing, seated, to my right. I could see right through her.
"Who are you?" "I'm Sara! You called me!" I almost went off the road. As soon as I could I found a place to pull over. I was speechless, and I could see that she was also. After a while I found my voice and asked her, "You've been looking for me?" "Yes!," came her excited reply, "when did you call me?" "Seventeen years ago." For the next twenty minutes we talked and tried as best we could in that time to understand where we had both come from. I had to explain what I was doing and that I would have to focus on it for several hours more. She said that she understood and that she would stay with me. When I finally got home I was unaware of her and was momentarily upset. Then I knew that she was right outside of my door. "Sara? Please come in!"
Sara Jane: I had been on the side of that highway since the sun had set. I knew that I was closing in on him, and I had probably missed him several times in the past. I was laying back in the tall grass where I was, looking at the stars. There was a wave of energy coming down the road and I knew that it was him. I got up and walked onto the road. There were headlights coming toward me and I knew that he was in what ever it was that was coming, and I flew into the truck as it passed. That song was playing and he saw me! Dumbfounded? You bet! We did talk for a while, and he did go about his job. I went home with him, but he was tired and wasn't paying attention to me. Llam smiled and told me not to worry. When we got to hsi house he went to his room. I followed and wa surprised to see the spirit of a man sitting outside of his room. This was Michael Archontas. He smiled and said, "I think he'd like to see you!" Then he called my name and I went into his room. He was sitting up on his bed and smiled when I came into the room. For the first time I was aware of my post-mortem existence as a succubus. He sensed my thoughts with a laughing, "I know that!" and opened his arms.
Roy: I can honestly say that for the first time in my life that I made love. Between us we created that energy, that sea of loving light from which we all come. Numerous times, I might add.
Sara Jane: Gone were the priests and monks and the admonitions about chastity, gone were the lonely nights and days of the bleak centuries previous. We wore each other out. When we were sated he started asking me about my life. I couldn't believe this! He was asking me about myself and no-one but no-one had ever cared to do that, ever. We talked for almost twelve hours. Then we made love again. And again.