Circle of the White Rose Part 2 – VM Franck

A Two Part Entreaty by V. M. Franck
Part Two – My Entrance into the Circle of the White Rose

Do high beings exist or is it wishful thinking? It’s comforting to think so, but I really don’t know. I can prove nothing. No one can, no matter how certain they are of their beliefs. However, I can tell you about the high being who visited me, how it unfolded and how that affected who I am…on the inside as well as with my writing.

My contact with other “realities” began when I was a pre-schooler. Plagued by a recurring nightmare my sense of safety vanished. Safety? Is there such a thing? There is only one way that I know of, and it is not as comforting as one might think, especially not to a child. It resides in the inner self, a self one has to uncover and develop for the first time or rediscover after the journey through birth. The awareness often emerges years later, if at all.

Recurring nightmares devastate feelings of safety for little kids. This one did me, beginning at the time I was around four and continuing until I was nine. I was born four years after the end of WWII. My parents were not political. Part of the lower socioeconomic class, Dad slaved in a lumber mill lifting the heavy boards by hand. Mom worked at home raising a garden, a few cows, rabbits and chickens as well as doing the numerous manual chores involved in running a household at that time. They toiled to make sure my sister, brother and I had enough to eat and a place to live. During those years we did not go to movies, had no television and owned a couple of tube-driven radios. The reception was laced with static. Mom only read me stories that were safe for a child’s ears to hear.

The setting of my nightmare was a wide cobblestone street passing through a city center with numerous stone buildings. I was on a bus with a bunch of people. I knew that when the sky turned red I must get to a bank building, a large stone structure on the opposite side of the street. If I failed I would die. Suddenly, the horror hit. I stumbled down the bus steps and ran across the street as fast as I could, though it seemed to be in slow motion. In the distance the sky turned red. What must have been a concussion from a bomb blast hit me. I fell to my face and tried to drag myself across the road to the building. I did not make it. I died in the middle of the street.

Heart pounding, blood rushing and breathing hard, I awoke with a jolt. Each time the dream recurred I lay in bed unable to return to sleep for a long while. I was terrified as darkness closed in around me. Over the years I learned to wake myself earlier and earlier in the dream. By the time I was nine I stopped them entirely.

Death triggers all kinds of things. Sometimes the death of a mate sparks an awakening. On one occasion it was not the death of my mother, father, grandparents or myself. This time it was Gary. When I looked into his eyes I saw part of myself gazing back. He was a lover and a friend. I planned to spend my life with him. However, because of his ill-advised choices earlier in his life, fate said no.

From the time he learned of the pancreatic cancer at age forty-five until the time of his death, five weeks elapsed. I went from living with his love to learning to survive without him. The religious training of my youth provided no comfort. Trying not to drown in the toilet of grief, I began exploring ways to climb out. I looked for something focusing on the loving aspect of spirituality. I taught myself to meditate and listened to soothing music, hoping to make sense of the fact that the man with such beautiful potential no longer had a physical body.

I thought, love doesn’t end with death, does it? It couldn’t. It just couldn’t. I concentrated on reaching him beyond the abyss, yearning for him to respond. On a day when it felt like a house was sitting on my chest, alone in my small English Tudor on the edge a creek in Oregon’s Milwaukie, a white rose appeared to me. It materialized in my mind on a backdrop of aqua blue. The blossom was without flaw. Searching for its significance I explored New Age texts. I learned the white rose was a symbol of an Elohim named Claire, an advanced being. Purity of intent, the white rose and the white flame were his vehicles.

It wasn’t until years later that Claire appeared to me. I was living somewhere else with an entirely different life. One morning as I was waking up, before I opened my eyes in my mind I saw a beautiful man. The image of him was clear and detailed. His shoulder length hair was silky blond, his eyes a crystalline blue. He wore what looked a robe, though I can’t be sure since I only saw him from the mid-chest up. His countenance was almost iridescent, the glow seeming to originate within him. He radiated purity and peace. As I gazed at him I became high. Yes, high. Not in the sense that we usually think of being high. Rather, it was from the perfection, purity and goodness personified in him. I was high for two days because of his energy. During that time my desire to be like him was born. I asked my spiritual teacher at the time who it could have been. She told me I already knew. I decided it had to be Claire. Could I be wrong? Of course.

Years later while writing my visionary novel, Once Without Dying, I put Claire to work. It is the story of friendship between three young women of different faiths, Sheeawna–Christian-motivated, talented and hot, Akilah–a Muslim–grief stricken, faith-driven and determined and Mali–a Hindu–innocent, loyal and vulnerable. While learning of their differences and similarities, they support each other through heartaches and struggles. They gain the courage to pursue a unifying force and common purpose with a mystic(Claire), a female rabbi, a Zennist, a follower of Native American spirituality and one who believes love is the way. It is a powerful tale of love, respect and honor at a time when tolerance and compassion are paramount on national and international scales.

The love embodied in the white rose is key if the goal of the novel is to come to fruition. Love of the purest kind is not at all fickle or judgmental. It is genuine and encompasses all that we are. Here on in, we can proceed with the love of the rose activated in our hearts or not. It is up to us. My hope, my request is that you consider what you do next and every “next” to come. It is important. Our survival depends on it. As you contemplate these things I’d like to share the following with you.

Circle of the White Rose

In the embers of my mind lives a rose. Alone on a field of aqua-blue, its beauty is exquisite. Its meaning, I discovered, is pure and perfect love. Perfect love, I asked myself, is that possible? After all the relationship failures, intimate and otherwise, with people who claimed to love me, whom I claimed to love and those who cared for nothing but themselves, the idea of perfect love seemed laughable, implausible. But as I sought my inner self, as I learned who and what I had been, who and what I am, who and what I can be, who and what I desire to be, the idea gained merit. Perfect love has nothing to do with and yet simultaneously everything to do with me.

As time went on, more roses joined my rose, one at a time forming an arch, becoming a circle. The circle grew larger and larger as more roses squeezed in. Millions of them, merging together, yet retaining their individuality, became one giant rose, forming a web of love around the earth, sending positive energy throughout this place we all live.

I am a rose, a white one. If this is what you are or would like to be, if you would like to join the circle, you need only picture it in you heart and radiate it outward to all-that-is. The rest will follow.

This is the second part of this article. For the first part, click here.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Visionary Fiction Alliance.

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About the author

V. M. Franck grew up in a highly religious working-class environment. After working at a series of unsatisfying jobs, in her late twenties she earned a B. S. from Oregon State University. Thereafter, she worked with abused and disadvantaged children. A family tragedy changed her perceptions permanently. She wrote and published a book about its impact on herself and her family. She met Philip, who had always wanted to be a writer. They married and moved to the mountains to write full-time. She is currently writing her eleventh book. All but one of them are works of Visionary Fiction. She is also an exhibiting artist with her own online gallery.

Visit her website: whereartmeetstheheart.com

Her works of Visionary Fiction include:

– Tater’s Maters of Hootenanny Flats, The Maters Series – Book 1
– Resurrection Rose, The Maters Series – Book 2
– Final Entry, The Maters Series – Book 3
– In Ways We Can’t Imagine, The St. Germaine Chronicles – Book 1
– The Pacifist’s War, The St. Germaine Chronicles – Book 2
– Once Without Dying
– The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus’ Little Sister