“Where are we, Bill?” Paul, the North Star podcast host, calmly inquired.
“We’re sitting in the citystate of Gardanne,” I said.
Last we had left the podcast hosts, Paul and Pete the Killer, they were tucked snug into their podcast studio. Kitty and I had been broadcasting from the movierain. She had spun up a soul sanctuary that situated in the center of the dozen Earths flying in a torus pattern.
The torrent of droplet Earths and all their events comprised the wave of a golden doughnut (the torus), and radiated light outward as vibrations unto the multiverse movierain. Kitty’s soul sanctuary captured souls not ready to reincarnate (or were too volatile to be reintroduced into the general populations).
If her soul sanctuary was the foundation, then Gardanne was the city built upon it. While Kitty worked with troubled souls mid-reincarnation, I attended to those who were done with this soul recycling, but not yet ready to move onto the next existential plane. I told these semi-enlightened souls they could stay in Gardanne for as long as they wanted.
Paul and Pete the Killer sat at the breakfast table on our back deck, in the residential part of town. The back of the property was set on an incline, sloping downward, and overlooked the rest of the neighborhood and peered far out to the distant baseball field. It was also a great place to watch sunsets.
“I thought it could be good to get you two out of your podcast studio,” I continued. Pete the Killer was sitting next to Paul. Kitty completed our foursome around the table.
“What’s the plan, Bill?” Pete the Killer was all action.
“As the first official visitors to town,” I said, “Kitty and I can give you the tour. You could film it like a travel vlog. Could be good career development for you two, as well: ‘Paul and Pete from Gardanne.’ You’d no longer just be strictly ‘in-studio’ podcasters.”
“Paul and Pete the Killer,” Pete the Killer said.
“Beats a Zoom call,” Kitty said.
“Are you going to leap us around, like when you two flitted through the dozen Earth versions on our last show?” Paul said.
“Nah,” I said. “I thought we could take the GT350 coupe,” and gestured with a slight nod toward the garage, which housed a 1966 Shelby Mustang, painted in Wimbledon White with thick Guardsman Blue racing stripes down the center. “It has a back seat, so we should all fit.”
We rolled over the City Bridge into downtown—the four of us couped up in the Mustang, Kitty sitting shotgun, with Paul and Pete the Killer crammed in the back seat. We whisked them through the city streets of Gardanne, where one could locate lab spaces, coffee shops, pubs, restaurants, practice rental spaces for musicians, and small village comedy clubs for comedians. We had playhouses, skateparks—the whole city was skatable, in fact—and public gardens, among other fixtures in the urban space. We took them to Old Faithful, the large, square bar at the far corner of Gardanne. If you were lucky, you’d pull up a corner stool adjacent to bar regular and old wiseman Norm, for a bit of hopped up wisdom.
We drove by a larger mural commemorating the escape from suffering in Gardanne, painted on a 4-story brick wall by Banksy. The scene depicted a large sunset in the background, with silhouettes of souls ascending from reincarnation of recycling Earths below into the Gardanne plateau above.
“Banksy’s here??” Pete the Killer was impressed.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s not a permanent resident, but will swoop in from time to time to install his urban art exhibits. I’ll pick him up from wherever he’s surfing the ether, let him work, and then drop him off wherever he needs to go next in the multiverse. Nice guy.”
There was a baseball game in session in the field at the other corner of Gardanne, but we didn’t attend. There’d be plenty of time for that. And then we rounded out the tour returning to the suburban neighborhood.
“How did this place come about again?” Paul inquired, after the tour ended and we were sat in the back of my garage, overlooking the backyard zen garden.
I told him we decided to create this place as an afterthought, that would eventually become an afterlife for those residents who found themselves here. These were souls who were not quite ready to move onto the next plane—infinite as these subtle destination were. But they also weren’t about to descend down to one of the dozen Earths from which they had originated. They had spent too many lifetimes down there as terrestrials, and were not about to reintegrate into suffering once again. Gardanne provided a respite, an existential weigh station to relax, recalibrate and reclaim their higher selves.
We didn’t guarantee enlightenment in this afterlife oasis, I told them, but we certainly extended the possibility that soul residents who spent a heightened time here could eventually attain some divine vibration and perhaps transcend to a more sophisticated consciousness.
To simply maintain footing on Her hallowed ground, residents had to vibrate at a certain hertz. Gardanne Herself resonated at a higher vibration than any of the Earths below. Should some resident encounter stagnation, inescapable depression or other ill moods, there was always the underworld that sat where a normal city’s sewer system flowed beneath. Troubled souls descended from here down to one of the Earthy Dozen to learn lessons again. With the help of the Thunderbird Crows, Kitty oversaw entrances and exits from this purgatory.
The Gardanne Register would write particlarly poignant obituaries for any unfortunate souls and former residents of Her city. The sentimental prose took on a melancholy hue, as compared to the obits of those souls who had attained enlightenment, departing our fine citystate for higher planes. And it was always fun to contribute an introduction to the “Oi” section (for “Obits and Introductions”) of the paper, regarding a fresh soul who had newly escaped the suffering of reincarnation. Although Gardanne didn’t guarantee enlightenment for these initiates, it was always nice to highlight an entity who’d finally reached new heights, in our ongoing effort to elevate consciousness.
Paul and Pete the Killer stayed for several weeks. They then returned to their North Star podcast studio to edit the footage. The entire town was invited to the unveiling of their profile piece on the place, presented on the big screen in the center tabernacle. The news-style picture was scheduled to air at 8 p.m. the following Wednesday night. All those in the know could watch it on the center big screen or enjoy its syndicated broadcast over Gardanne radiowaves.
At precisely 8 p.m., as citizens filtered into their seats, the tabernacle stage’s curtain went up, and Paul and Pete’s piece played on a large, silver screen.
The video opened on a swooping view of the rolling green grounds approaching the tabernacle. The perspective flew to the city’s central stage, as the emerald fields flooded downward disappearing off-screen.
Paul (narrating): “Welcome to the city of Gardanne. You won’t find this locale on any Earth version; She sits high up in the 7th-dimension, a heightened Dew place where consciousness can thrive.”
The camera soared over the tabernacle’s roof, gained altitude and flew over the nearby river that separated residential neighborhoods on the other side, from the cityside. The City Bridge hung over the horizon on the left, connecting downtown to suburbia.
After a few more sweeping shots to fully capture the landscape’s breadth, the video cut to me, sitting at the desk in my editor’s corner office of the Gardanne Register.
Paul (off camera): “What is your hope for the town, Bill?”
“Gardanne is a place,” I said (on screen), “for us to explore what potential humanity has to offer, as a vehicle in elevating consciousness.”
“How is this different from places down on Earths?” Paul said.
“We sit at a higher vibration,” I said. “There’s no room for violence or anger, deceit or malice of any kind. Those lower vibratory moods will only sink a resident right out of here. We’re here to discover, to create and express what it means to be alive. In short, we welcome artists who simply want to create—not for money or any sort of personal gain—but for the sake of expressing existence so that, as a community, we can hold subtler and subtler forms of beauty and understanding.”
“How will you know when you’ve achieved this intellectual feat?”
“Honey,” I said, “we’ve arrived. The performance part is gravy, a celebration of this fact. We’re not saying this is the ultimate or penultimate existence form, but it’s a step toward that north star.”
The screen cut to a montage. A comedian performs under the spotlight of a dark, city village comedy club. Then a local play put on in the playhouse. Musicians perform on stage at several hip dive bars downtown. And local art exhibits are strewn about nearly every street corner. It’s evident that to be a Gardanne resident is to become a performance artist—living this enhanced life and expressing it, in your chosen media.
Pete the Killer (narrating over the montage): “Gardanne is like one giant community workshop, where resident artists can express themselves, share experiences and inspire each other. The town, always in a state of flux, appears stretching toward a moving north target that makes the compass needle dance. There is no right or wrong here; only phenomena that aim to further enrich the community, in all aspects of the word.”
The screen cut back to me sitting at my editor’s desk.
Paul (off camera): “How do people arrive here?”
“The foundation of Gardanne is Kitty’s soul sanctuary,” I said. “Departing souls from one of the dozen Earths below find themselves here, if they’re done with reincarnating—not quite ready to be reborn down there—and unsure of where to go next on the higher planes. If Kitty and her crew find a soul to be spiritually sound, they have the choice to come here or go back down unto the breach and reincarnate as another terrestrial. But I’ll let her explain that process.”
Cut to Kitty sitting in her head office, at the soul sanctuary just below Gardanne. The space was well-lit, but windowless. The reinforced glass separating her office from the hallway indicated this place was secure and potentially housed nefarious characters. But Kitty’s cool like Fonzie.
Paul (off camera): “And what do you do here?”
“Initially,” she said, “the soul sanctuary acted as a therapeutic space for troubled souls who weren’t quite ready to reincarnate down below. But when we built Gardanne on top, this place also became a weigh station for souls passing through. If existentially fit, they could choose to ascend to Gardanne, remain here for treatment, or fall below into the fray once again. We also became a receiving station for heavier souls descending from Gardanne. Sometimes we run out of momentum, however high the dimension, and as we say in the town charter: ‘enlightenment’s not guaranteed.'”
“You’re sort of a shipper/receiver of souls,” Pete the Killer said, also off camera.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, “but essentially, yes. We’re like interdimensional customs. It’s not that we’re trying to be exclusive in Gardanne; it’s just that not everybody’s ready to handle the higher consciousness.”
The video cut to the inside of my mustang. Paul was riding shotgun with Pete in the back seat next to the camera guy. We had left Kitty to run her soul weigh station. While driving, I tuned the staticky radio to a clear signal broadcasting Larry King Forever.
“Is that a Gardanne radio show?” Paul said, as King’s voice rang crystal through the interior of the coupe.
“Yeah, we got Larry King to host a 3-hour daily radio show to comment on the minutia of everyday happening here,” I said.
(Over the radio car speaker) Larry King: “It’s another beautiful Gardanne day. Welcome to ‘Larry King Forever.’ Today, our guests will be a performer from the theatre district, a band new to the land—we’ll ask them what they’re working on—and Ferris Bueller, who will join us to discuss some upcoming events in the town’s residential neighborhoods. If anyone would know, he would.”
The GT350 rolled steadily over the city bridge.
“Where to next, Bill?” Pete the Killer said.
We were headed back toward the olde neighborhood, in the residential heights of Gardanne.
“We’re headed deep into the rural residential nooks of Gardanne Heights,” I said. “Some local medicine women and men have built a psychedlic house to aid attendees in exploring altered realities.”
Cut to the multi-colored psychedelic hut, housed under a tree canopy off the beaten path. It was a magical place. Shaman Mr. Cumulus was standing on the wooden front porch to greet us.
“Welcome in, fellas!” Cumulus said.
Mr. Cumulus wore tiny, circular Ben Franklin glasses. He had long, white hair down to his shoulders. And he was draped in baggy, comfortable fitting threads that flowed like a wizard’s robe.
The camera followed closely behind, as we entered the wilderness apothecary’s hut. Inside, shelves lined with all sorts of herbs, plants, mushrooms, flowers, roots and other curated vegetation filled the space. I wish the visual piece could have captured the plethora of aromas that tickled our noses as we headed to the back, where we sat with the local medicine man.
“Why does the town need a medicine man?” Paul said, once were settled in Mr. Cumulus’ back office, a quaint nook that felt like the inside of a wooden knot. “Isn’t Gardanne a utopia?”
“People do enter here on a very high, pure vibration, yes,” Mr. Cumulus said. “But operating at such a high frequency all day, intermingling with fellow collaborators can create dissonance—particularly, spiritual dissonance. You see, we all derive from the duality of the Earths below. And our evolving consciousness brings that opposing polarity with it. Over time, shadows from our subconscious can emerge, if left unexamined. Here, at the psychedelic hut and several other places on the compound, we perform therapy and administer plant medicine to bring these otherwise unknown, dark entities influencing our moods into the light.”
“We’re, by no means, a perfect place,” I added. “Gardanne’s intent is to provide a heightened environment for exploring consciousness, elevating it. It’s certainly better than any physical earth below. And freed from organic matter, our energetic bodies are largely immune to any physical disease. But the spirit, you see, can still incur illness if one’s vibrations encounter cacophony, unexpected as they may be, that can tick like a time bomb within.”
“We’re not all business either,” Cumulus built upon my addition. “Communing with plant medicine is a method for engaging with the higher plant consciousnesses.”
“So you believe in recreational use,” Pete the Killer said with a chuckle.
“Yes, there’s still room for mind expansion up here,” Cumulus answered. “These plant species are far more ancient than the primates from which humans derived. I commune with the plants often, myself. They find it so comical the tribulations that plague human souls. It seems so trivial to them. In addition to healing our minds, bodies and spirits, the plant life also provides us animals invaluable, mind-altering, enlightening perspective.”
The screen faded to black, as Mr. Cumulus smiled us out of the segment.
They capped off the evening with a podcast studio session in my Thunderbird Lair, in the back of our garage. I let the two more seasoned podcast hosts take the captain’s and first mate’s chairs—two La-Z-Boys that sat diagonally facing each other. I sat between them in the jump seat.
“What would you say is the ultimate goal of this place?” Paul said, as the sun setting over my backyard warmly lit our faces.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said, speaking into the handheld microphone, while my guests enjoyed nice Shure mics in boom arms. “Right now, we’re making sure every citizen has the room to create, to express life in earthly form. We want to make sure that none of our folks’ efforts harm themselves or others. The hint that we’re onto something is enough for me.”
“Bill, c’mon,” Paul was not satisfied with my diplomatic response. “We’ve become too close of friends now for you to expect such a glib answer would slip past. I know you’ve given it more thought than that.”
“Well, I do have one theory. My thought or hope is that one morning, fresh off of some eventful night that capped yet another productive day, I’ll be sitting zen right there in my garden, meditating,” I gestured to the zen garden that lied just outside the garage podcast studio, “all the thoughts of the previous days will swim about my imagination…”
“Yeah, and?” Paul was beginning to sound more like his co-host, Pete the Killer.
“And then my mind will go blank, plummeting into delta waves faster than ever before. An even higher vibrating self will leap out of my chest—a higher being than even this astral self—and fly to upper echelon consciousness destinations. My guess—although I don’t know anyone who’s ever seen it—would be at the foot of the Thunderbird Leader’s steps. I’m in no rush for that day to come, but I hope that’s the next stage in consciousness for me. Then, I can ask Him for guidance directly.”
“That’s heavy,” Pete the Killer chimed in.
“Ya know,” I said, “why do they call you ‘Pete the Killer’?”
“Because, when it comes to making audiences laugh,” Pete the Killer responded without hesitation, “I always murder.”
A beat, then Pete piped up again.
“What’s your game plan in the meantime?” he said.
“Before I meet with the Leader?” I said.
“Yeah, that could take centuries, maybe even millenia. What’s preventing your townsfolk from descending into madness?”
“Right now, I’m trying to capture the time, in the late ’80s of Earth_42, just before the internet was unleashed on the masses,” I said. “It’s always been my contention that we could have prolonged that magical time had the Information Highway not paved over all our space for mystical forests. I’ve pumped ’80s movies and music through our main channels—radio, film releases, music, of course, and style. The hope is that, if this zeitgeist is Gardanners’ first impression, they won’t succumb to a data overload that tsunami’d the mid-1990s.”
“So, you just won’t have internet?” Paul prodded.
“We’ll have something better…” I said. “The Akashic of the mid- to late-1980s. We’ll springboard reference points from this vantage to color our observation. Thunderbird techniques—among others—can access a wealth of information far more intimately than any computer technology. I think part of the reason the late-’80s era ended so abruptly was backlash from the internet’s hubris—proving all too efficiently to outperform then current methods of telecommunications, mass media, delivery, design and many other skilled disciplines that required far more manpower. As a young child, I witnessed the late 20th-century equivalent of Ford’s assembly line car replacing the horse. Our world intends to recapture these human occupations—newspaper reporter, radio broadcaster, mailperson, etc. Let’s slow things down a bit to conjure the magic molasses of the 1980s.”
“You gonna have a mall?” Pete said.
“We have one in Gardanne Heights, right in the residential neighborhood on this side of the City Bridge,” I said. “We put a fountain in the center, an Orange Julius, a Hot Topic, you name it.”
“What about the townsfolk?” Paul said.
“Their M.O.?”
“Yeah, that’s your goal to ultimately convene with the Leader. They don’t even possess a concept of that, so how could they be working towards that unknowable ideal?”
“We thought of that,” I said. “The tabernacle. Stage time, in the center of it all. Performance artists—musicians, actors, comedians, dancers, etc.—vie for the time to express their respective art. Mass appeal, measured by the upticks in Gardanne mouths wording praise of their creative works, broadcast on local radiowaves and printed in the newspaper, decide who gets the most stage time. I try not to think of the socioeconomic implications. In a world designed to require no money, and thus experience no crime, incentive must be drawn from some other source: popularity. Those in the literary and visual arts, however, the studio musicians and abstract painters, obscure sculptors and artists whose creative exploration can hardly be articulated—for those folk—they’re content just working their craft. They may experience burnout and want to move on—either to a higher plane or back down below. But, to them, the fact that they’ve even arrived here is a victory.”
Cut to Paul and Pete the Killer sitting at my back deck’s table, where their visit had began, the city of Gardanne as their backdrop. The viewer could see the baseball diamond in the far distance, the bridge and the bar Old Faithful tucked into the city skyline.
“There you have it,” Paul said to camera. “The 7th-dimensional citystate of Gardanne, a consciousness-expanding utopia that was built upon the souls of the dozen Earths below.”
Pete the Killer, sitting diagonally opposite Paul, had the final word: “The founders tell us this is not heaven, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.”
Driving home from the tabernacle, after the North Star podcast’s piece aired, I reminisced on how we all found ourselves in this mystical realm…
Gardanne didn’t materialize all at once.
The place that would become the 7th-dimensional citystate arrived to us over time, out of order, in bits and non sequitur pieces like a scrambled signal that had to be decyphered within the intellectual and spiritual contraints of our receiving minds.
A stone sill, gateway to some warm, inviting home. The yellow light within inviting and attractive. An older lady sets a flower pot on the granite’s surface and smiles.
That was one vision.
Another was gliding over a green field, approaching an amphitheater tabernacle at the center of a small but culturally rich hamlet.
Peering, hovering just round the 2nd-story corner of grey limestone on an ancient library housing mystical texts. On the ground, just below, a quaint, quiet, 19th-century English garden.
An evening out, in high society downtown. My eyes scrawl up paisley walls, lit evenly by incandescent lamps illuminating the finely painted flowers on the wallpaper.
These were all places I had either been or strove to include as pivotal landmarks in our emerging community.
I, the Big Cat, Bill Thunderbird held chair as the editor-in-chief at the Gardanne Register. I embodied the gorilla position for the entire town. My staff recorded all notable events.
It was like my higher self, whom I’d experience in spontaneous glimpses, was trying to remember this sacred place—where I had been, departed, and now in exile, was vehemently attempting to return. It was both my origin and my final destination upon leaving this Earth—the penultimate anamnesis.
This divine place did not necessarily uphold the ideal of a heaven (as religions would), but it sat as a positive step to leap toward, in the never-ending pursuit of higher consciousness.
Much like a continuous shot, where the whole film crew must come together to capture the scene in a single take, the Gardanne townsfolk united regularly to create the town. It was their collective consciousness, centered around the tabernacle that willed this Dew place into existence. It began as Kitty and my child, but then grew to lean on future residents who could carry the weight without our help. I still hung as the unifying black thread—the Higgs Boson particle omnipresent—that could emerge from any inspired moment. Sometimes I’d incite them. But mostly, I could rely on the creative genius of our carefully selected citizens.
If you liked this tale, you might like the book, Big Cat. (Gardanne and Big Cat’s journal exist in the same universe).
delodell.com 