The Economist In Love Pt 03

Renaissance

It was the great gathering of the lads at Arwen that Tui predicted. The return of the Tea boys to Mrs. T. All were there with the exception of Nikau who as medical students are, tied to his studies and commitments.

The day was a great event full of happiness and chatter. It all began at morning tea. All sat at the long table catching up with one another. It was here that the phrase 'Mrs. T and the T boys' was hatched.

It was Jacob who suggested in anticipation of the tea to exclaim," what else but tea for the tea boys." In reference to their adventures their first adventures with Justine." And from Mrs. T." Replied Ben

Justine found her largest tea pot and made a ceremony of it. It was an old one that went back to the days when tea and scones was a morning tea staple for farm hands. Justine had recently found it in what had once been a scullery and had cleaned it up. The tea boys were really impressed not having seen a tea pot quite that large before.

Unfortunately, there were not any scones this day, they had to make do with chocolate biscuits but Justine promised in future they would get fresh baked scones. Completing morning tea, they set to work at Justine's direction. With the garden the worst for wear, much was just dug up, and all the foliage heaped into an area destined for composting. Justine reluctantly resorted to weed spray in preparation for mulching and matting.

Joshua had brought a mulching machine from his farm, so trees and bushes were fed in and piles of mulch created for spreading.

After a full day of hard work including lunch under the fig tree, they down tools and gathered around the brazier in the garden, wrapped up for the cold while Joshua manned the barbecue and Tui and Justine the food. Eventually they settled down to earnest discussion as a stream of smoke lifted from the brazier and hung in the cool winter air. Each discussed their studies, aspirations and love life. Ben, Jacob and Noah were fascinated in Tui, Shayne and Joshua's opinions on ecology and the environment. Especially Joshua's take on permaculture. In their collective minds there were business opportunities here for some start up combining new technologies with what must be the way of the future.

They talked about the 'what if's' of Joshua leasing Justine's land. Justine listened, not contributing much but feeling emotionally charged by their passion and enthusiasm. She felt a rekindling of desire for Arwen inspired by what they had to say.

They all agreed that they would spend another day in the garden and get together once again the following evening to talk more. The night continued in a more party atmosphere as the music and beer took its affect.

The whole group spent the night sleeping on couches and spare beds. The following morning Fleur was awake very early making sure that everyone was awake too, super excited with all these young people who had invaded their house. Later in the morning after a productive spell of work they took a pilgrimage to the forest pool. They went via the wetland so that Tui could described the ecology of it and what she had recorded, then they walked up to the clearing where stood the giant Totara. All stood silently before it in reverential awe. Tui broke the silence in announcing she was giving it a name.

"I am calling it "Rakau Whaea." `

"What's that?" Asked Ben.

"Mother Tree."

"I approve," spoke up Justine who was then obliged to tell them what that meant.

Once they reached the pool there was a dare that all take a midwinter swim. So, all stripped naked and did just that. Tui and Justine taking turns with Fleur who was desperate to join. It was exhilarating for Justine to see them all naked together again, but this time sex was not the theme. To Justine it seemed that the shackles of shame and guilt from their earlier encounters were released. This seemed like another new turning point in her life.

They returned in a hurry chattering and narrowly avoiding the nettles as they ran back through the bush to the house where towels were handed around.

"I think I will definitely use Rakau Whaea as my yoga spot." Announced Justine.

"So, you are not selling Arwen then?" Replied Tui.

"I can't let down my family can I." Justine smiled at the lads. There was a series of high fives all round as the conversation resumed on the subject of yoga, finishing with Justine and Tui giving the lads a 101 on the subject.

*******

The Trip

The next few months saw Justine spending more time at Arwen often bringing her city friends. Tui was also there often. Tui's program for her study required her to be monitoring the changing biodiversity of the pond during a complete yearly cycle. Much of her other study could be undertaken remotely online so in the second half of the year she was either with her Aunty or at Arwen.

Justine's city friends suspected that the relationship between Justine and Tui might be something more than that with a visiting researcher, but nothing was said. Justine and tui's actual relationship remained platonic. They began to socialize locally together, do yoga together under Rakau Whaea, read, work and study together. There was some affection, but a line remained in their togetherness. When Justine worked in the garden, she never did it naked in front of Tui not wanting to encourage anything more in the relationship rather than what it was.

Justine felt a new need for a challenge with her work. Her discussions with the Tea boys had her mind buzzing. She had been more involved with complex systems at the institute and in her associations in this area at the university. That and the work she had done privately with the economic intelligence and forecasting institute had been noticed and she was informed that she had been earmarked as a possible head of a new departmental research programme. She was asked if she would apply once it became available. This would open up a whole new field for her. It would give her an unprecedented opportunity to advance the ideas she had be mulling with. It would give her the people and resources she wished for. Eventually the position was hers and as a result it ended the long association with the institute as she joined the university in a full-time position of some responsibility.

Toward the end of the university year Tui had to return to university and before going, the subject of Justine's mother taking LSD arose. Tui had tripped herself and Justine grilled her on it. Not long before Nola had died, she had discussed her experience of LSD at length with Justine as she did with much of her life in the sixties.

Justine had just settled into her new university position and was in the process of planning the research program. Mentally she was brimming with ideas but at an impasse to bring them together into a coherent research program. It was the same with her private life where she was moving but to what?

She felt she needed a mental and intellectual jolt and remembering what her mother had said and what Tui thought, she was curious to what opening the doors to perception might bring before she was totally absorbed into her program. LSD might provide that mental jolt.

Tui promised to obtain her some LSD when away. True to her promise she had arrived with five pills.

Justine jiggled the five small pills in her hand. "What are they called." She asked,

"Double dome." Tui replied, "You see the little domes at each end."

"How strong is the hit?"

"These are not strong, but they are consistent. You would have to take a few to get what you told me your mother described."

"What if I take the whole five?"

"I've never taken that. Do you want me to come with you? "

"No, you stay and look after Fleur." Justine poured them back into the little vial and screwing the cap back put them in her pocket.

"OK, stay safe." Fleur was worried she might go swimming in the pool or something but didn't want to create a negative vibe so kept the thought to herself.

Justine turned and waved back to Tui then walked slowly and thoughtfully along the path with her a ground mat under her arm. she now had passed the wetland then up the rocky and root crossed track to Rakau Whaea. She lay down the mat onto a flat area below the tree onto the ferny forest floor.

She took out the vial and unceremoniously undid the cap, poured out the pills and popped them into her mouth. Discarding the vial, she walked over to the stream babbling alongside. Cupping her hands, she scooped up the chill forest water and washed down the pills. Then she undressed, first taking off her boots, socks and then slipping down her jeans. Off came her sweater and bra. She folded all neatly in a pile. Finally, she eased off her panties and placed them on top.

Now completely naked she adjusted herself to the cool of the bush. She shook her shoulders and breasts then lightly rubbed herself all over, finally clawing her mons slightly running her fingers through wiry brush of hair and touching the gulf that led the canal that made her a woman. An erotic warm feeling briefly emerged and subsided as an inexplicable thought of Tui's image crossed her mind, a kind of mental thank you for the pills, perhaps.

She crossed back to the mat and then sat down on the mat, crossing her legs in the lotus position. She sat upright trying to clear her mind. A glimpse of yellow setting light of the sun through the rustling trees set a shadowy scene accompanied by the early evening sounds of the stream and the birds. She thought she could hear the squeal of a far-off kiwi. She loved the animal sounds, the cicadas, the buzzing of the bees in the borage and the call of the ruru owl in the night and she loved especially the late summer evening trill of the field crickets. There was nothing here that would ever scare or trouble her.

Justine waited for the drug to take effect.

At the beginning there was nothing, but in time shadows began to move to some unknown order forming flowing geometrical shapes. Justine looked at her hands, something was not quite right. She flicked one hand away, a flurry of geometrical shapes cascaded off her fingers, flew and dissipated in the shadows of the undergrowth around her.

She found herself repeating the gesture, each time the effect was more pronounced, more colourful and flowing. Time and time again, she gestured becoming more expansive in a slow rhythmic dance of her arms. The elicited shapes cascading over themselves began to move the forest around. The undergrowth and the trees started to take up the shapes she was transmitting with her hands and waving them around, shape shifting and sharing what Justine had to give.

Justine lay back and stretched out on the mat her naked body forming a star. She tipped her head back staring into the boughs of rakau whaea. Its crown formed a shifting head, its leaves a mass of curly hair. The ferns and climbers that snaked up her trunk began to move, winding their away up in constant motion. Sinuous shapes which took new form as they rose. Then there appeared the pattern of Tui's Moko Kauae, expanding and replicating, patterning along the forest canopy. Rakau Whaea briefly began to become human with Tui's moko at its chin. The forest was whispering loudly to her, Justine strained to hear what it was saying but she could not distinguish the sound from the patterns she was seeing. Suddenly there was the call of a kiwi now close by, as series of whistles, a male. There was a chattering response from a female further away to the opposite side of Justine. She listened for more as the chattering seemed to be taken up by the forest, the trees chattering to one another, gossiping.

She became conscious of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, louder and louder, thumping as a haka chanting as a mass of bare feet beating the ground until it tremored. The mass haka was caught up in the tree pulsing with the chant absorbing the sound in with the leaves and morphing into abstract birds wheeling this way and that, in Escher like clouds then descending and spinning above Justine's head; a mesmerizing mass of murmuration as they whirled and twirled and twisted this way then that, all the time chittering and chattering and finally fluttering down to be absorbed into the ground animating the roots of Rakau Whaea sinuously moving beneath Justine in a dance with fungal threads growing and entwining with the roots of the saplings around her. Then among them were the worms and the nematodes and the snails, bugs and the beetles, Centipedes and millipedes joining the mix, marching in a pack, with Wetas and hoppers and all manner of insects forming intricate patterns in large displays finally abstracting into blocks of bright colours diminishing to firefly blips wheeling above her in a murmuration as the birds had done then finally disappearing into the stary sky above the canopy.

Justine lay back staring into the canopy catching glimpses of the stars in the gathering gloom prolificating as they descended back onto her. The stars seeming to spark like some electrical explosion, scattering into the very shifting patterns that now seemed to be subsuming into her body.

Justine found herself locked into her star prone position, staring straight up. Her body seemed to be beginning to disintegrate into cellular patterns connected to one another with a mass of colourful ever undulating, twisting contortions. The threadlike connections spread about her and on the roots of Rakau Whaea, and on to her saplings gathering around the other trees and bushes in the undergrowth and further to the tall tree ferns that seemed to be hanging over constantly waving to her.

Another call, the female kiwi chattered, it seemed to be talking to her directly, the chattering call turning into a mass of fragmented patterns that were sprouting their colourful wiry shoots to connected to her. Justine feebly lifted her arm to grasp a shoot and she morphed into a matching tangle of shoots reacting and integrating with those from the kiwi.

Justine lay back again submitting herself to the show as everything began to become more transparent and cellular then atomic. She felt herself, floating, suspended in space at one with the universe and time suspended in eternity. The patterns were now as subatomic particles, protons, electrons, hadrons, and quarks all moving in concert with one another, moving in order, entering and leaving her body, the ground the trees and throughout the universe. Her body only defined as each particle entered and left changing colour and shape. Justine was truly part of a universe not defined by time or solid. A never-ending continuum, nothing was large or small, just there. Infinity existing as she peered down into her body, into the universe of the infinitesimally small, she peered back to the stars which had joined the order, to the infinitesimally large, a thought charged through her mind, they were both the same, the universe without implies the universe within.

Then the ripples began. At first it was as though some giant god of the universe had dipped its finger into Justine's celestial pool as concentric ripples began to radiate from one undefinable point. Then there was another the ripples crossing one another, their motion oscillating to create peaks and troughs in an array whose pattern could not quite be defined in Justine's mind. Then there was another disturbance and another, then another, the pattern of ripples becoming more and more intricate until reality started to manifest as patches into Justine's perception. The jigsaw of reality began to take the shape of the real world around her.

True reality finally introduced itself in the call of the ruru owl. Justine opened her eyes, and it was sitting on a low branch not far from her head. Its glowing eyes blinked. It called again and the eyes seemed to tinkle and scatter like sparks as a manifestation of the sound. Justine stayed absolutely relaxed lying prone as gradually the wild order of the night slowly returned to an everyday normalized perception. The flight that Tui had given her was coming into land and she would soon be going through immigration to the world of reality.

And as she did so, Justine thought and thought. She thought about Tui, she thought about Joshua, she thought about what they were all doing.

She thought about the friends from the city. She thought about her work. Suddenly her research, her aims and the possibilities. The order of the path forward seemed to come to her in unrealistic clarity. A feeling of impatience welled inside her to shake off these residual sensations radiating through her mind and body and take back reality and shape it to new purpose.

She thought of her mother, those books and records she read and listened to, 'nothing is real, nothing to get hung about'. She thought about her mother's failed quest for free love and her own sexuality. Somehow her mother's purpose in free love had never materialized. 'The world is still fucked up about sex as it ever was, and she was testament to that. But unlike her mother nobody has been hurt, maybe there is hope for a better future.

Her overriding thought was that everything is linked sex, economics, war, peace, love, hatred, birth death and politics. A spark in one will cause a ripple in all the others.

She sat up and spread her legs, she licked her finger and searched for her vagina. Her birth canal was still there ready to receive then give. She can give birth to babies; she can give birth to ideas, and she can nurture others with her ideas as she can do with her babies. What passes through this canal can replicate her perhaps for perpetuity. She tipped her head back and stared up at Rakau whaea, she too was a mother tree, a tree that can draw from others the nutrients of thought, process it and pass that on, for new saplings to rise up fed and healthy to become giants in their own right.

As she sat and thought about this, shafts of early morning sun began to penetrate the canopy, alighting on Tui who was blinking in the rays as she walked up the rocky path with Fleur in her arms. Above and around her fluttered three or four fantails, snatching at the tiny early morning flies of the bush that Tui had disturbed. A Disneyesque grand entrance into what may heroically become Justine's brand-new world.

"I see you are OK Justine; I was worried about you; I didn't get a wink of sleep last night."

"I feel great, I feel as though I have arisen afresh from a long, long sleep."

Tui handed Justine, Fleur who was giggling at her Mummy with no clothes on. Tui gathered them up then they marched determinedly down to the house, Justine still naked in the chill dewy air. Pausing at the black hewn timber front door, Justine read 'Arwen' carved into the lintel above the door, touching it with her fingers, then she wrenched the lever and marched into the house and into her bedroom. Turning to Tui who now had Fleur back she took both into her arms then collapsed them both onto the bed in tight and passionate embrace. "Welcome," Tui Whispered," Welcome home."

*******

It was afternoon before Justine awoke in her bed, still naked in the bedclothes, blinking and shaking the cobwebs from her mind she made her way to her wardrobe to put on a dressing gown and then out into the living area. It had now clouded over outside and had become unseasonably cold. In response Tui had a fire going. Hearing Justine rising she was in the kitchen preparing tea.

When both were sitting in armchairs, pulled up to the fire they cheerily chatted about the night before which Justine found virtually unexplainable. Her voice echoed her utter awe in the experience, her mind seemed alive with the aftermath. "I could come to believe in solipsism after that experience, I mean does anything actually exist? That said nothing happened that wasn't connected to something else. I couldn't distinguish what I was seeing to what I was hearing for example. Everything, every thought was a segue into another sense, another world, another idea all expressed in colour, pattern and action. Nothing was autonomous, alone, existing without connection to something else." Justine paused, "Sorry... I don't think I have words to describe it."