"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet

Man was so created by the Lord as to be able, while living in the body to speak with spirits and angels as in fact was done in the most ancient times; for, being a spirit clothed with a body, he is one with them. - Emmanuel Swedenborg

In the past three years, I lived a lifetime. It's hard to imagine so much change can come so quickly to so many. I suppose you could trace the roots of it to the dawn of time but, for me, it all started on an ordinary Tuesday.

The heavy, rich scent of freshly-wakened, rain-damp earth drifted in on a warm breeze that brushed my cheeks with butterfly kisses. Outside the kitchen the birds and squirrels chattered, going on with their springtime business, but I was as good as deaf to them. A thousand voices only I could hear vied for my attention. I squeezed my eyes shut. My hands gripped the edge of the sink so hard they ached. I was aware of the pain. I focused on that. My hands hurt and my head throbbed dully with my heartbeat: a slow, steady, unending rhythm. I counted the beats as they pushed my blood through my veins again and again. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all that's required. Focus on that. Put attention on what's real.

Donovan's voice broke through my thoughts. "Can't we do something?"

My eldest child often repeated this plea. His need to be constantly entertained and distracted was, at times, exhausting. He seemed even more desperate than usual today. How could I blame him? I was more desperate than usual today, too. I longed for a single moment of inner peace.

"Wanna go slide!" Ike chimed in.

The chatter quieted, as I directed my attention to my boys. The dirty breakfast dishes were still on the table, like the homeschool math worksheets which remained untouched in front of the boys. Laundry beckoned, the floors were filthy, and I needed to call the cable company about the last bill. There must have been a dozen chores that seemed urgent, but in front of me lingered two sets of the saddest little puppy dog eyes you could ever imagine. I couldn't help but laugh at their dramatic efforts. I knew Michael would still be at work in his studio for a few more hours. Beyond the window, the clear blue sky offered hope of clarity and new beginnings.

I determined to ignore the restless, crawling sensation in the pit of my belly; to shut my mind to the whispers in my head, and convince myself my troubles were caused by cabin fever. Or perhaps exhaustion. How long had it been since I'd had a decent night's sleep? I filled my lunges with the fresh air, and it really did feel good, like spring, after a long, cold winter. Wasn't that exactly what I needed?

I shoved the disconcerting internal voices to a far, dark corner, and forced my voice into a cheerful tone. "Know what, guys? I'm in. Go put on your mud boots and coats. Let's get out of here." The dishes and worksheets could wait.

They cheered. I was a hero! My spirits lifted. Yes, a trip to the park was just what we all needed. I stuck a note on the fridge, just in case Michael came in early, and we headed out on a grand adventure. My giggling boys ran ahead and came back to me and ran ahead again like rambunctious puppies. They chased each other, splashing through every puddle. Warm sun seeped into my pores and eased the ache in my spirit. I took deep breaths, allowing the sweet scents to sweep away the worry. The earth beneath my feet, the breeze on my skin, the chirping of the birds in my ears: It was good. It was solid and real.

The park was packed. We were not the only people with a major case of spring fever. A clamor of noise reached out to us, loud enough, I hoped, to smother my internal chatter.

I always dreaded this part. The boys rushed onward to the playground. I looked around. I didn't know any of the women who were lining the benches, talking in little groups, or gazing into their smart phones while rocking strollers with their toes. They all seemed so content and certain of their places in the social hierarchy. I had never been the type of person to sit down next to a stranger and make conversation, for fear they would think me weird. I thought I was weird, so it was only logical.

In the grassy area just east of the playground, a young woman with the longest, most golden braid I'd ever seen sat in the lotus position, face to the sun, looking more serene than I had ever been. I watched her for a moment, trying to absorb some of her peace. As I stood there, I realized that the day was even warmer than I'd thought and shrugged off my jacket. A low wooden border circled the play area. I sat, stretching out my legs to let the sunshine do its work in melting the winter's brutal frost from the marrow of my bones.

Maybe it was because I'd become so accustomed to the never-ending noise. Maybe it was because I was exhausted, or maybe it was that the park was so busy. He was just another solid form among dozens of solid forms, but I never heard the man, or saw him approach. Although, as he sat next to me, I felt him. Energy buzzed all around him, making the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. My entire body tensed. I won't look at you, I thought. You're not real. You're not part of my world. You need to go.

"Being real and being part of your world aren't mutually exclusive." He spoke aloud in answer to my thoughts.

His voice washed over me. The earth trembled at the sound of it. The deep, resonant beauty overwhelmed me. My heart raced. Unwilling tears sprang to my eyes. The ache in my head intensified to a sharp, stabbing pain. The sound paralyzed me, crushing me beneath its enormity. I was accustomed to bothersome voices in my mind, but nothing like this had happened to me before.

"Please don't!" I whimpered. "You need to go. Please go." I said all of this without looking at him. I refused to acknowledge him in that way.

He made no motion to leave, but he drew back. He became less. His energy pulled away from me, and the flooding tidal wave of emotion receded with it.

"Simone," he said.

He had an exceptional voice. It could have belonged to a great actor or singer. I begged him silently, you need to leave. Please go. Please leave me alone.

"I need you to hear me, Simone." He hesitated. "Please." He spoke the word like it was far from familiar to him.

I watched Donovan. He was Iron Man, running with two other boys who were, no doubt, also members of The Avengers. Ike sat on a swing, pumping his little legs furiously in attempt at getting as high as the big kids. He wouldn't ask me to push him. He was far too independent for that. Everything was OK. Everything was normal. I was OK. All of this was real. I faced the man sitting next to me.

He appeared to be just a man: a gorgeous, tall, broad-shouldered man with flawless mahogany skin and extraordinary green eyes. He wore jeans and a navy blue hoodie. He could have stepped out of an advertisement for a popular urban clothing store.

"It is very important that you hear what I have to say to you. I swear I will not deceive you," he promised me.

Something in the deepest part of me was coming unraveled. How could no one see my slow disintegration? Perhaps they saw and just didn't care. I chewed on my lower lip and watched the children playing. I wanted to be normal. I shouldn't listen to him or hear what he had to tell me. My head ached. I was so tired.

He put a gentle hand on my shoulder and his good power flowed over and through me. A lightness unlike anything I'd ever known filled me, banishing pain and fatigue. I sighed from the sheer pleasure of such physical comfort. A flood of information poured into me. I knew the woman on the bench nearest to me was named Jennifer. She was thirty two years old and having an affair with her lawn boy who had just turned nineteen. The lawn boy was a descendant of Alexander the Great and a miller's daughter. I knew there was a child named Gregory on the see-saw. He had peed his pants twelve minutes ago, but no one had noticed yet. The sun would set at 7:43. There were exactly one hundred, thirty eight birds in the park, if you counted the four that would hatch later in the afternoon. I knew the birth date of every person on the playground. Of the seventeen moms there, six had lost a child to miscarriage, and one had once had an abortion without informing her husband. I knew the braided beauty doing yoga was older than the human race, and the warmth I'd sensed in that part of the park radiated out from her. I started, and glanced back at her. She smiled at me. I knew so many things, and I knew I would listen to what he had to tell me.

"You are a woman with rare gifts."

An inexplicable sense of peace permeated my restless mind, even as I considered how hard I'd fought for the past ten years to silence the voices in my head; to hear only that which others could hear. If I opened myself up at this moment, I was certain they'd never be silenced. Will they drive me mad? Will I end up locked away in a hospital somewhere?

"Humans have been driven mad by lesser things than that which I must share with you," he said, responding to my thoughts once more. "I cannot say what the future will bring you; it has not been given to me to see. But you are stronger than you think, and your gifts are powerful. In the history of your race, only a handful have been able to do what you can do with such clarity."

I was a bit baffled by the marvelous serenity I experienced. My earlier fear had been so devastating. "Are you controlling my emotions? Are you making me calm?"

"No. I eased your physical burden, the weariness and pain. It is she who gives warmth." He indicated the ancient beauty with the golden braid. It was impossible not to believe him. He felt like purity, and light, and every good thing in life. The sounds of conversation and laughter, movement, and play all around us, reached my ears, but but I chose to give him my full attention.

"Listen," he said, and I did. I closed my eyes, and with that weird calm on my spirit, I listened to the laughter and shouts and cries of the children playing. The swings squeaked, and dozens of tiny footsteps thumped on the play structure. The adults talked in soft murmurs. The birds sang and swooped around the park. Just beyond all that was the background sound of the others. Years has passed since I'd intentionally set out to hear and understand what they were saying.

Listening to the others was not unlike listening to the crowd in any busy place. A thousand voices came together to create a certain tone. Sometimes a single voice or conversation rose above the others but, more often, it was the buzz of the untold many from which I could usually gather a feeling. They were happy, sad, wondering, confused, or angry. Words drifted out at me.

Bored

Hungry

Tired

Change

Right

Deserve

Shouldn't

Can't

Displeased

Scared

It was a great surprise to me that I wasn't just ready to embrace that which I'd fought for so long. Without realizing it, I had longed for the acceptance. I'd been aching for it. In that moment, I admitted what I'd known all along. The truth was terrifying to me, but I could no longer lie to myself. The voices were real.

"I hear," I said. "Help me understand."

"Most men hear only their fellow man. Even that is inconsistent and fallible. You are able to hear other men, as well as those who are not men. You are able to hear through the veil that has been drawn. Those on the other side of the veil are interwoven with the human life on this side. It is not another place, removed, but another space, entwined. That is why many sound so near, so often. What do you hear today?"

What I heard was an untamed symphony, wild and bizarre but somehow still harmonious. A single thread bound it all together. "They're worried," I said, but it was more than that. "There's a restlessness. They're anxious."

His green eyes burned like emerald fire against the dark canvass of his skin.

So powerful!

The thought radiated from him into me, and I understood the awe that this mighty being held for me, a mortal woman. "Yes," he replied. "Many are worried, very worried indeed. The restlessness you sense is much more dangerous than you can imagine. We are on the verge of an event, the likes of which has not been seen since before the veil was drawn. Perhaps, ever. Soon the veil shall be cast aside and there will be great confusion and distress. Nothing will remain unchanged. You, Simone, have the ability to act as intercessor. You must mediate between men and others, and make them hear one another. Only hearing and understanding will stop the destruction."

"So you want me to save the universe?" I raised an eyebrow at him. Maybe I wasn't insane, but he was.

"All the universes," he replied.

I closed my eyes and tilted my face upward toward the bright sun. I drew in the deepest breath I could manage and tried to remember ever feeling so calm. When I looked at him again he was watching me, patient, waiting for me to respond in some way. I smiled at him. There was no way to help it. He was just so lovely. Over his shoulder I could see the young woman, still sitting in the grass like a pretty blonde Buddha.

"Tell me about her," I said.

"Her name is Freyja. She is a mother, like you, and, like you, she possesses great power. She feels very protective toward you. She has a gift for calming the human spirit."

My state at that moment was very much like being drunk on good red wine. On some level I was aware of how ridiculous this was--sitting in the park, being notified by a beautiful stranger that I needed to save the universe from certain destruction, but I couldn't find it in me to get worked up about it. I wished I could take my shoes off and squish my toes in the cool wet earth beneath the grass. I told him as much.

"Freyja was concerned that you would find me and my request overwhelming," he said.

"Smart lady," I said. "Good thing her Zen is contagious." A contented little sigh escaped me as I watched Ike, swinging. "What will happen to me when she leaves?"

"I suspect you will have much to consider."

"Yes, much." I tried to focus my thoughts and process what he had shared with me. "I have no idea how to do what you are asking me to do. Hearing voices in my head is a far cry from being some sort of inter-galactic diplomat."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "For now, just carry on with your day. Take your children home. Your man awaits you. Tell him all I have disclosed to you. I will come to you again and tell you more."

"Will you tell me all you know?" I don't think I'd have asked if it weren't for that slightly drunken buzz.

He gazed down at his laced fingers. "I will tell you all you can bear," he answered.

"And no more than that?"

"You are very strong," he said, not really answering my question.

The sun disappeared behind the clouds creeping in from the horizon. A tremor of fear skipped down my spine. I noticed Freyja was gone. "Do I have any choice in all this?"

He sat up straight, surprised by the question. "There is always a choice, Simone."

I wasn't so sure that was true. The stranger stood and walked away; no big poof of smoke or chariots of fire. The admiring glances he gained as he passed the other women assured me that they saw him, just as I had. The warmth of the day had faded, and I was so cold I began to shiver. I must have gathered my children, walked home, and given them some lunch but, to this day, I don't remember any of that. I remember Michael, my prince among men, coming in from his studio and telling me that he was going to see if our neighbor, Mrs. Walczak, could keep an eye on the boys for a little while. When he returned, he took my hand and led me to sit on the couch. "What's going on?" He asked.

I studied every inch of the face I loved, from the tiny scar on his left cheek, to the perfectly bowed shape of his lips. I reached up and brushed my fingers along his jaw line, feeling the slight scratchiness of a day-old beard. He has always been the kindest, gentlest, wisest, most patient human being I have ever known. He loved me when I was at my most unlovable. He never once judged me. I wasn't afraid to speak freely to him. I was afraid that speaking out loud would make it all real. Maybe, if I didn't say anything at all, I could convince myself it had just been my imagination.

But even as I had that thought, I could hear the voices. They permeated my mind. Their words were clear and strong, now that I'd allowed the door to be opened.

I'm hungry.

I'm frightened.

I'm tired.

I'm losing control.

I'm entitled.

I'm uncertain.

I'm bored.

I hugged one of the colorful throw pillows to my chest, met my husband's eye, and declared, "I'm not crazy. That's not why I hear voices."

He smiled, and I thought, not for the first time, that he still looked like the young boy I'd first met. I ached with love for him.

"I never thought you were," he answered.

"Never?"

"Not once," he said, with perfect sincerity.

I pondered that. "Why not?"

For this, I got a laugh. "Silly woman!"

"Why is that silly? I've thought I was crazy a million times over."

He shook his head. "I've thought a lot of things about you over the years. You are funny, eccentric at times, different from the crowd. You're smart, and creative, and intuitive. None of that makes you crazy."

"But," I hesitated. "I hear voices."

"So do I. I hear your voice right now."

I hit him with the pillow.

"What?" He caught it and tucked it against the cushions, and then reached out to brush a strand of hair away from my face. "Dear Simone, I honestly never thought you were crazy. I've lived with you for a long time. You mutter under your breath, and talk in your sleep, but it's never random babbling. There's an energy around you in those moments; something powerful and spiritual, a clarity that's compelling to me. I've seen you fight for normalcy, and that was frightening and confusing for you, so I helped you sort things out. But I never thought you were sick. I always assumed you were hearing things I couldn't hear."

I was dumbstruck. All those years he had known? How had he known when I hadn't? They had been with me for as long as I could remember. At the time I met Michael, the chatter had reached a fever pitch, and I was seriously considering ending my own life just to make the noise stop. I couldn't imagine trying to maintain myself as a normal person for another day. And a day after that. And an infinite stretch of days beyond that. He had helped me learn to intentionally put my focus on what was here, in the physical world and, when I gave them less attention, the voices quieted down to a low murmur. By the time Donovan was born, they were just static most days. I could go a week or more without even thinking about them. Now, all of that had changed.

"Is that what all this is about?" he asked me now. "The voices?"

I nodded.