One time, while living in the flesh, my name was Wilbert Rhine. In that existence, I had an experience I feel important to share with all who care to take theirs, for the truth within it is a fine example of why you should not mistake knowers for God Almighty. I can tell you this in truth because a man I knew, Sr. Charlton, did make that mistake, and it wasn’t pleasant having to explain his ignorance to him..sometimes seeing makes heavy the enlightened soul.

It was a yesterday, or the day before that, but that timely detail doesn’t matter. Only it was at that time that I stood outside my gate and looked upon the Stars that looked upon me. I contemplated joining them, then I contemplated the fact that I did not know if I would reside with them that time around, so I toiled away from that prospect. It is the unattractive ways of human existence that can lead ones’ thoughts in that direction. How was I supposed to know what ill would rise up while sharing with my brethren what I had been shown from the Furthers? I cared not to watch my brothers stumble, so I would never have closed my Eyes like Sr. Charlton said I had that day, Amen.

I left my homestead on the particular day that was deemed my reproach of sin to nature. I minded my business so I could remember everything I had on my to get list that I had not written down. I did rather avoid trips into the small town closest to my homestead, but as it happens, some of them cannot be, and this was one of them-woe was me.

I found Sr. Charlton a contrary fellow. He was quite ruthless at times, then at others he was a saint. I wondered how he supposed I should have known what was happening at his homestead on the other side of the mountain. Why did he accuse me of not speaking the loss?, just because I did see to the Furthers at times?...I supposed.

Sr. Charlton was a contrite man of the cloth, honest in his admittals of self indulgence, which cannot be said about his alternate ego. He showed the twins within him quite often, only they acted nothing alike. I called him reverend out of respect for his time served in religious work, but he was not ordained for the pulpit, probably because he was also well versed in questionable conversation of which he exercised most faithfully. And when his homestead was less than fortunate during that last raid on Shaw Mountain, he was more faithful than that.

I searched my soul for ways to make better Sr. Charlton. I had no idea he’d march right onto my homestead and demand I give him half of my livelihood. He truly believed I should’ve folded with him in his misfortune, but I did not know his homestead would be plundered while he gathered remedies I used for clearing. I talked to souls over Yonder(where I am now), but they did not tell me everything!, I couldn’t be held responsible for his misfortune! And just because Sr. Charlton’s grands spoke to him through me did not mean I felt he owed me a thing! He foraged for me out of gratitude (or fear of not sowing the right return seed), and oh how he dwelled in the midst of unclean lips upon his return from that forage, for he was not content with seeds he’d already sown!

Shaw Mountain was a beautiful scene. The smaller hills within it were dressed in the most pleasant colors of flower, and right down the middle a stream trailed from one of the caves the Shaw Indians occupied, till time moved them elsewhere. That cave was said to go clear through to the other side of the mountain and because the stream flowed down that side also, I believed it, for my curiousity did not constitute bravery.

I tried to tell Sr. Charlton not to purchase that lot for homestead he so longed to have. I told him of the Indians and how the story my father told to me had kept me in touch with my mothers’ wishes. I told him of all the blood that came down with the stream for days after the raid on the Shaws. And most of all, I told him he would regret his temptation if he obliged it. Of course he did not listen. That is why his lot was the one closest to the stream on the other side of the mountain, and that is also why his lot was left in ruin. If only he would have listened as I tried to explain time to him. Some of you probably already know fleshy existence frames time so as to have a time line, and the ones of you who look to the Furthers know that time need not be framed There, so with that knowing, you can understand why it took some linear years for Sr. Charlton’s biggest misfortune to come round...but he just could not understand that.

On October 4th 1777, I was born to one Miriam Rhine by way of Walter Rhine. My parents had me as their only child, probably because I asked enough questions for two or three. I was always interested in Shaw Mountain just because it took the air of mystery, and even though I was born at it’s foot hills, I never got to go onto that mountain. Mama said it was because the plague was on it, but I always felt it was for some reason she just couldn’t bare to tell. When I was almost 7 years along, mama died. My father said the winter took her because she just couldn’t take it anymore, and that made me wonder how many winters were left for me because everybody always said how much I looked like that sweet Miriam Rhine. I ended up taking 83 of them, so I supposed looks didn’t have much to do with it.

When I was10 years along, my father saw fit to give way to my constant wonder about Shaw Mountain, and after he did, I spent the rest of my years wishing he hadn’t. As the story was told to me, Shaw Mountain was named after the Shaw Indians. The Shaw tribe was said to be the tribe closest to Creation. They were different from other Indian tribes and that was because of their Holiness. They didn’t agree with the majority of what the other tribes practiced so they began prayer and ritual in hopes to better them. They spent months at a time purging the others until one tribe, the Fossuie Indians, rose up against them. From my experience, I know it is true that when prayer and ritual go out toward a person, place, or thing, that person, place, or thing has no choice but to receive it. And on occasion, the receiving end might be a little less than willing to hear the truth, but power does reside in Word and Deed, Amen.

The Fossuie tribe was the cold heartedest of all the tribes. They would take the ears of men and bury them deep into the ground because they said it helped them hear what Mother Earth had to say. They would raid towns and homesteads and leave with hundreds of ears at a time. So many people died because of the Fossuies. They were responsible for my maternal grandparents deaths, and that is why my mother would not even speak of the mountain she never let me explore.

The Shaw Indians prayed hard for the Fossuies. Their prayer was for the Fossuies to have a new way to hear Mother Earth, and the Fossuies did hear this praying, but they heard it as them praying for their hearing to be cut off, just like all the ears that had been, so they planned a raid to move them and followed through with it in the winter of 1773.

My mother was thirteen at the time, and after that cold night, her and her aunt Dot who had raised her, moved a hundred miles away where she soon met my father. Mama was so homesick till she and my father moved right back to the spot where she had grown as a child. I inherited the land after my father died from the fever in 1836, and it wasn’t long after his passing that Sr. Charlton moved into town.

This man must have been unlucky from the start because when he finally got to the small town closest to my homestead, he lost all his baggage when his horses got spooked and ran his wagon right into one of the old miner pits that hadn’t been covered properly. I don’t know why his grands chose me to take to him, but when the other side wants something, the best remedy for their wanting is to oblige. He walked up to me with a half smile(that’s the first time I met the twins) and asked me, kindly, to help him recover what of his baggage might be recoverable. I replied to him, in kind, that I would do what I could, but had to be getting back to my homestead to tend to my animals. I told him they were out of feed and that was why I made the trip into town. I stood there expecting him to understand right easy, but that was only a wishful thought, for out came words I had only heard when I could not get past the whiskey house in quick time.

Now most people would walk away from a stranger that chose to be so dually mannered, but I could not find an about face in my stance, and matter of factly, I was intrigued by someone that would display such character in two moments time. I asked him, very kindly, to calm down and told him that I understood his upset and was sure that my animals would be alright long enough for me to give him a helping hand (since I was sure I was absolutely the only person in that small town that would). The one side of his face relaxed and off we went to the miner pit in silence.

I got to know Sr. Charlton pretty good. I learned how easy he was to get upset and show the twin that wasn’t pleasant for company, and I learned how to calm him in the midst of his uproars so the pleasant twin could resume his sanities. It was somewhere in between this learning that I had a clear picture in my head of a child at a very wealthy homestead looking to be with his grandparents. I saw a pecan grove and apple orchard, I saw two yellow horses with ribbons woven in their manes and tails. I saw a fireplace with pictures sitting on the mantle, I saw the little boy getting a big hug and kiss from his grandmother before getting off to sleep, and I heard the names Jonathan, Wilma, and Theobald. The next time I saw Sr. Charlton, I couldn’t help but tell him about the pictures in my head, and when I got finished I thought I was going to have to carry him to the morgue. His body began to sway back and forth, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and the next thing I knew he had hit the floor. Sr. Charlton was the first person I had ever saw faint, and it wasn’t until he woke up that I knew to call it faint. I thought I had killed him with the picture in my head, and that was not a good day to forget my suspenders fore that shook me till I had a real hard time keeping my trousers in place.

Sr. Charlton got his composure back and that is when he told me I had described to him his childhood home, and had called out his name and his grandparents’ names. When he said that, I thought I was going to faint, but no I did not. Instead, I began to understand why, at times, I would have pictures in my head. It seemed souls had been making the pictures in my head so I might let their people know they were still somewhere besides the box used for burial. Sr. Charlton was the first person I had ever told about these pictures, but after that, I began to share them with others. The Spirits would lead me right to the one’s who I was to tell the pictures to and every time I’d tell, the people would faint, but thanks to Sr. Charlton I knew they would get up eventually so I felt no burden in leaving while they were still on the floor.

I believe Sr. Charlton thought I was his own personal knower because every time he had a question about something, he’d come to me in hopes of his grands giving him the answer through pictures in my head. He just couldn’t learn that I wasn’t God Almighty. No matter, I guess all the times I was able to tell him the answer to something he wanted to know was the reason he thought I should have seen the raid on his lot coming. He blamed me for all his possessions getting took by the Fossuie Indians. They came back, you see, because they had heard from Mother Earth that the Shaw Indians had been reborn in their caves. I do believe the Fossuies should’ve been more mindful of the ears they took, for I think they were raiding the whiskey houses a little too often, and at that, were in for some pretty tall tales. Sr. Charlton’s lot was another proof of this because there was not one Shaw Indian on that mountain.

Sr. Charlton blamed me for the raid having happened. He said I could have seen it coming had I been looking and then he would not be without what he worked so long to get. It was then that I reminded him of the constant pleas I had made many years before. I reminded him how I begged him to lodge a while longer at Ms. Mabel’s Boarding House while searching the land for other pleasing steads. At this, I could tell he was becoming the other twin because his face started to twitch. I have learned that Sr. Charlton becomes the other twin when he is having to face fault within himself, and on that particular occasion, I slipped quietly out my door in order to allow him to work through that transition time with just he and him. I assumed the next time I saw him he would be the friendly gentleman as long as I did not bring up the issue of I told you so. I even felt we may have been able to become partners(for not only did he harbor twins, but could do the work of two as well), but when he left my homestead as I had so gracefully done, I never saw him again. I didn’t even get a farewell.

As time past, I tried to consult with his grands to learn of his health and well being, but they, too, had left. They just quit drawing pictures for me. Then, at my passing into this Yonder, I learned that Sr. Charlton’s grands were twins too, and they had long departed this plane in the Furthers to serve out time where it is cold and dark, like that cave on Shaw Mountain.

Signed this day in the gethers,
Wilbert Rhine 1777-1860