The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [22]
At first they seemed very friendly, but just as I gathered my thoughts to bring up the issue of food, they looked at me suspiciously and began backing away.
“Listen, something has happened,” I said. “We were supposed to bring some food to friends camping up here, and our food was stolen. It’s really important that we get there right away.” I was pulling my wallet from my back pocket. “I was hoping you might have extra food I could buy.”
“We have to get moving,” Paul said, fidgeting. And his friend, David, added quickly, “There are park rangers on this trail all the time. I’m sure one will come along any minute.”
Both of them were almost running up the trail now, looking back as if they thought I might give chase. They hurried ahead until they were completely out of sight.
Wil came up behind me with a perplexed look on his face.
“That didn’t look like it went well,” he said. “What happened?”
I was just as confused and told him every word of the conversation. He was shaking his head, smiling. When I got to the part where I had told them our food had been stolen and we needed more to take to some friends, Wil grimaced noticeably. I felt embarrassed but rationalized the fib by saying I was afraid they would think we were crazy or unstable, since we hadn’t just hiked out to get more food.
Wil stared at me, remaining silent, still shaking his head in disbelief. At the same time, I realized how weak and nervous I had become. I had lost all my centered clarity.
“We were just talking about telling the truth,” Wil said.
“I guess I outsmarted myself,” I replied. “It really brought me down.”
He looked at me sympathetically. “Once you elevate your clarity and energy in an authentic way, then it’s pretty dramatic what happens when you lie about something. It’s an immediate crash.”
I moved over and sat down on a rock, and Wil sat beside me.
“Look,” he added. “It’s the canyon. It accelerates everything. It doesn’t feel good, but what happened is a helpful Synchronicity just the same. You just have to see what it’s showing you. During the Modern age, we’ve been bending the truth for our obsessive personal gain, or to further some political end. That’s why, as we wake up, we see corruption and greed everywhere.
“But as you can see, at higher levels of consciousness there’s no such thing as a lie or a distortion that is okay. The Law of Truth is absolute. If we don’t stay honest, to our best awareness, it hurts everyone: us individually, because it collapses our energy and clarity; and others because we fail to give them the benefit of our truth and positive influence.”
He was up and heading down the trail again and I followed along.
“This brings us,” he said, “to the next spiritual principle the Hopis told me about: the Law of Connection.”
Just at that moment, we caught sight of a crowd of people in front of us. Walking closer, we realized everyone was looking in one direction, farther into the canyon. Then we heard the object of their attention: the sound of a helicopter in the distance.
Wil gave me a look, and we eased up slowly to where the others were. From here we could see the chopper hovering only several hundred yards ahead. It stayed there a few moments more, then slowly descended to the ground and cut its engines.
Wil leaned over and whispered, “That isn’t a tourist helicopter. It’s military.”
Some of the people who seemed like tourists began to walk casually up the trail again. But two groups held back: us and a group of about a dozen men, all of differing cultural backgrounds. Some were clearly Europeans and Americans, but judging from their speaking patterns, most of them seemed to be from out of the country, probably the Middle East. As they moved around, I saw two women with them as well.
One of the women turned