Hot, dusty, and lost. I stopped my car by the grassy edge of the orange dirt road. A T-intersection before me. No signs. Left or right? … Left or right?

It was the pre-cellphone era of 1982, and just four years before I would become a spiritually-oriented astrologer; four years before I would begin to appreciate the consciousness that lives all around us in the wonders of the bush; four years before the magic of Reiki would enter my life; four years before I would be prepared for what was about to occur. And I was stuck on the other side of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, somewhere near the Blue Mountains, beyond the tourist roads.

I was on my way to a business appointment, and on a schedule. No time to stop. And no air-con to soothe my brain. Had to find a particular country town in this dry, crackling-hot landscape. The old Eucalypts, some showing the black signs of a passing fire in their histories, all stared at me, curious, and probably laughing to themselves, “One of those ridiculous humans: when are they going to find stillness!”

I was utterly alone, but for the trees … and the dry grass, and the little creatures invisibly buried in the mess of the yellow scrub and the canopies. Only the whooshing sound of the canopies.

Engrossed in a useless map, I was losing hope. Then the voice was right beside me. A strange-looking young man, blonde hair parted right down the centre, a crisp white shirt, and a bow tie. He leaned a little out of his car window … a silent car … a dirt road … a silent car on a dirt road?

He looked a little bothered, and sharply announced, “Where are you trying to go!”

It was odd: such a dry, dusty, ordinary sort of day in that heat, no one about, no traffic, just this immediate problem. Odd that I would hesitate and attach so much importance to that question. I somehow knew what he meant. But I went through the motions of answering him as though I didn’t. And, well, I was lost!

I gave him the name of the town. He answered promptly with confident directions. I glanced back at the map, looked up to thank him, and he and his silent car were gone. No trace. No dust floating about in his wake. Only the sound of the Eucalypts, the canopy.

… This is not the only time I have received mysterious help when I’d thought all (and I) was lost. And I am not the only person who has experienced such a surreal stranger in a time of need. Many travellers throughout the centuries have returned with tales of mysterious encounters with strange people, animals, and birds, who have guided them out of danger.

Are we mad? Are we delirious? Or are we in such a state of surrender that we can at last perceive the Beings who have subtley guided us from birth?

Our ordinary waking consciousness is bound by five physical senses, mechanisms for detecting vibratory frequencies that the brain can unscramble to create a familiar 3-D representation of these environmental inputs. Are the five senses, and the five pre-programmed consciousnesses that preceive them, entirely reliable? Or is there a sixth sense, the one that allows us to hear and see beyond the range of our physical sense capabilities? Even dogs hear sounds beyond our limited range; and cats can be observed closely watching images pass by in a room, images that to us are entirely invisible.

To scoff at a reality of life that is beyond the scope of our physical-sense perceptions is to limit our own chances to move beyond our inner boundaries. The mind is far vaster than we can even imagine, despite our cell phones and iPads (both only imagined by “Trekkies”, in 1982), TV remotes, satellites, and various flying machines. To scoff at the mysterious is to miss some absolutely marvellous messages and magical visions that can help us on this crazy Earthly journey… Besides, as we know, truth is always stranger than fiction!

Buddha Blessings!
Kerrie Redgate (Changchub Dolma)