What would you do if a trusted friend told you you needed to stop a war between your ancestral planets? Your first reaction, like Gaia's, would be to laugh. But then what? It left Gaia with double trouble- figuring out if the man she’d just fallen in love with was telling the truth or if she should run for her life. Too late, she had to wonder, what if it was both?
If you’re looking for starship battles, slime monsters, and muscular heroines, this book will disappoint you. But what if what’s important to take into space is the expansion of the mind, knowledge about enlightenment, intuition, compassion, and love? What if the real questions are not who are they but who are we? This is a “What if…” novel about how one flawed woman found answers. It’s a story of hope and healing that says that sometimes asking “What if…?” is the very thing that leads us to transformation.
What would you do if a trusted friend told you you needed to stop a war between your ancestral planets? Your first reaction, like Gaia's, would be to laugh. But then what? It left Gaia with double trouble- figuring out if the man she’d just fallen in love with was telling the truth or if she should run for her life. Too late, she had to wonder, what if it was both?
If you’re looking for starship battles, slime monsters, and muscular heroines, this book will disappoint you. But what if what’s important to take into space is the expansion of the mind, knowledge about enlightenment, intuition, compassion, and love? What if the real questions are not who are they but who are we? This is a “What if…” novel about how one flawed woman found answers. It’s a story of hope and healing that says that sometimes asking “What if…?” is the very thing that leads us to transformation.
In movies, heroes are under thirty, drop-dead gorgeous, reflex-quick to pull triggers, drive fast cars, and strip off each other’s clothing. They are never middle-aged divorcees with graying hair and a rounded belly. They are never those who are socially phobic or whose interests lie in the life of the mind, world philosophy, and the expansion of consciousness. Remember the Pina Colada guy who sang that he’s looking for a woman who’s “not into yoga”? He wasn’t looking for me. Even when meditation is based on sound science, it’s common to dismiss those involved as crazies who also believe in hokum like UFOs. But frivolous things like little green men held no interest for me. My attitude was that if you’ve seen one night sky, you’ve seen them all, and I would have been offended to be categorized with nutjobs who believed that life existed outside of Earth.
At least that’s what I thought until Duncan—was that his real name? I doubted it—asked me to stop the war between my ancestral planets.
But then, why not that, too? My life had already been just one absurd thing after another. Any time I thought I had it made, some unexpected upheaval would collapse the wave function, or some bizarre happening would zing me off into another extreme that would take years to integrate.
But there’s a benefit to a life like that—if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. By the time I met Duncan, I was making quips that I’d become just about the strongest person I knew. Orculus would later say that all those ups and downs had been practical training for my mission. But how do we know that? Who can see more than flashlight distance in front of us? When life is unfolding through our myriad crises and predicaments, we don’t realize there is any sense to it at all. I certainly didn’t. In fact, by the time I met Duncan, I was still recovering from one of the lowest episodes of my life.
Two years earlier, my husband Jeff had snapped at me, “If I thought I had to spend the rest of my life listening to more tire-kicking or that idiocy about meditation and enlightenment, I’d go crazy myself.”
I just stood there, dumbfounded, as he went out the door with his suitcase. Had he said that he found those things irritating, I’d have been considerate. But when I talked about them, he’d only nodded as if in agreement. Sometimes, he even asked questions as if he wanted to hear more. His reference to enlightenment related to my having stumbled briefly into higher consciousness years earlier, a memory I referred to frequently because it had been so profoundly transformative. Afterward, I found Transcendental Meditation (what most people call TM). Maybe Jeff hadn’t understood the value of it, but there wasn’t anything silly about it. Hundreds of studies validated it, and it generated visible personal growth. A lot of smart people did TM.
But the tire-kicking wasn’t smart. I knew that. The expression came from the early days of automotive sales when customers kicked tires to see if they fell off. It wasn’t that I was petulant or whining, nor was it overt craziness. I don’t check and recheck locks like some people or check and recheck to ensure the stove is turned off, but in relationships, I check and recheck meanings because I never feel sure I have a handle on things, particularly where men are concerned. I ask more questions than the average person and am slower to accept answers. Some call it overthinking, but from where I stood, it was only reality-checking, looking at things from all angles, making sure I understood.
Other than that one serious flaw, I’d become a surprisingly good person. Out of a family with a felon in the closet and in which most members were hellions, drug addicts, and alcoholics, my logical outcome should have been to end up tending bar to pay the rent and stealing money (or doing worse) to support illegal habits. Instead, thanks to those pivotal minutes I spent in enlightenment, followed by years of dedication, meditation, and therapy, I’d overcome a thousand failings and experienced a thousand aha! moments of awakening into a more considerable maturity, and learned a thousand new tools for living an intelligent life—authenticity, communication skills, patient understanding, and more. With such a passion for self-development, I’d overcome nearly everything except that streak of stubborn paranoia.
Jeff knew all this when he asked me to marry him. He’d listened, asked appropriate questions, and appeared understanding—everything one would expect from someone with a degree in psychology who worked as a high school guidance counselor. I’d been so thrilled to have found someone to love… and who appeared to accept me as I was.
But a year later, he was walking out the door?
A couple of weeks later, he knocked on that door to hand me his do-it-yourself divorce papers. “Let’s just avoid any hassle,” he said. “I’m not coming back, so just sign the papers, and let’s be done with it.”
Too heartbroken and befuddled to have any sense, with no kids and no mutual property to quibble over, I signed.
Afterward, I discovered his real motives. He’d learned that he’d inherited a half-million dollars from his father and had been afraid I’d demand a share. He hadn’t been happy in the marriage (“Too much nutty stuff, and she never shut up with the questions,” a mutual friend reported he’d said.) What hurt the most wasn’t the money. What hurt was the crushing sense of betrayal—the broken trust. It had happened to me again.
“It’s just a major setback, Gaia,” my therapist reassured me when I started therapy again. “We’ll work through it.”
My flippant girlfriend Harriet made light of it by saying, “You’ve dealt with worse.” To cheer me up, she gave me a book entitled Everything Men Know about Women. The pages were entirely blank.
I knew they were right. And I was experienced enough to understand that, even after significant tragedies, nearly all of us ultimately say, “Yes, everything works out for the best.”
But it was tough. I’d been a successful freelance magazine writer for years, but without my usual happy, upbeat energy, I couldn’t keep up. In our small city, where jobs were hard to come by, the only job outside of Walmart I could find was selling programming tools. It turned out to be perfect because it was so tedious that it diverted my attention from grief to the pain of it. I further distracted myself by stocking my backyard with pets—chickens, rabbits, guineas, ducks, and even a pig. Half-fondly, half-spitefully, I called the pig Jeff. I made repairs around the house, watched Korean TV dramas, and went on meditation retreats until I got my feet back under me.
It was on one of the retreats that I began to understand what I had to do. At first, it was so painful to admit that it took my breath away. But, once I saw it, I had to look at it head-on until I finally accepted the truth. That line of thought began when I was on a meditation walk-and-talk on a path alongside the river with a friend. She’d asked me about family, and I told her that my family had all died, were in prison, or were ne’er-do-wells and that a year earlier, I’d been divorced.
Intending to be kind, she said, “You’re still attractive enough that I bet you will remarry.”
Until then, I hadn’t thought a lot about remarriage. It was true that, even though I’d just turned 52, others often commented on how young I looked. After many years of meditation, my complexion was smooth and rosy with few wrinkles. My dark eyes were clear, and my pixie-cut auburn hair had little gray. I admit that my body wasn’t as firm as it used to be, and I weighed more than I was happy about, but I looked good enough that some man would surely find me attractive.
But when this theoretical “some man” saw beneath my good skin to discover what Jeff did, that the tire-kicking emotionally crippled me, what then? And that was still the question of who would understand and appreciate my interests and attitudes about life. After the enlightenment experience, I became passionate about learning, particularly about anything to do with higher states of consciousness—world philosophy and spirituality, evolution, psychology, the relationship between the mind and body, natural law, natural health, and so on. Most people weren’t interested in those things, and most people found my lifestyle boring—I meditated twice a day, didn’t eat meat, drink, or do drugs, and typically I was in bed by 10:00 PM. Sure, it’s possible that “some man” might appreciate the purity and self-discipline, but that still left the tire-kicking. No one was going to be happy with that. Seeing the reality, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life—more of an acceptance than a decision—that I would give up any hope of ever having a romantic relationship.
Feeling wise and proud of myself for having such good common sense, I started looking for ways to enjoy life alone. I would become someone who laughed over the foibles of romantic love, dismissing it, saying such things as, “I believe in the Indian saying that, ‘In the East, relationships begin in friendship and end in devotion. In the West, love begins with passion and ends in disaster.’”
Indeed, what worse basis for deciding one’s mate than the irrational throes of romantic love? I’d had enough disasters and would not go there again, thank you. Instead, I would cultivate deep friendships. The value of friendship is seriously underrated. Where it’s almost impossible to get all one’s needs met with one person, getting them met with a bunch of persons is easier. And safer. And less demanding.
Thinking along these lines, I determined I would find other ways to become happy again. I wasn’t the kind to make impulsive decisions (well, I admit the impulse to buy the pig was pretty stupid), but to fulfill this new approach to life, I decided to move to Florida.
“You’re what?” Harriet asked. She was usually the one to do crazy things, not me, so it surprised us both that I made such a radical change.
“I’m sick of my job, and everywhere I go, there are memories of Jeff,” I said. “I plan to sell my house and live off the proceeds until I get work writing again.”
“Well, if that is what you want, you go, girl. But why Florida?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “I like that it’s 1400 miles from anything, Jeff; that’s a big plus. And, lately, I remember palm trees and how the air felt on my skin when I drove around Florida in my VW van back in the hippie days.” I sipped some herb tea and added, “There’s something else too. I can’t explain it; I decided that I want to have some adventures.”
If my mother was still alive and heard me say I wanted to have adventures, she’d have raised her eyebrows and said, “Be careful what you wish for, dearie, for you might just get it.”
That was when I thought an adventure was going on an ocean cruise by myself. But outer space? Are you out of your mind?
This story is filled with possibility and adventure. It is a companion novel to Piller’s non-fiction book of the same name which is filled with nailbiting dread, drama, and a fearless inventory of her mind and memories.
After all the tire-kicking of past disappointments, Gaia feels content. It can't last. Her reality gets severely warped when her dream man reveals that he is a disguised alien from outer space. His story gets weirder when he tells her that only she can avert a war between the Vesian and Ig'ra people.
Her first reaction is to cut all ties. However, once she is alone and gives herself time to think, she realizes that her friendship with Duncan has grown because of their mutual respect, honesty, and deep discussions. Something about Duncan has allowed her to cast aside many fears. She realizes her love is being put to the test.
What's at stake? Report to the moon for further training or send Duncan away.
What’s great? Once Gaia sets up the challenge of whether she will become a galaxy diplomat, she proceeds with several thought experiments, known as Gedankenexperiment, to test her readiness for duty.
Piller drops nuggets of information on all the research she has done to make the story believable. Her clear descriptions of settings in the real world (and off) are detailed and vivid. It's a joy to be a spectator to her intelligent reasoning as Gaia mulls over the issues. The story is sprinkled with the character's droll sense of humor. My favorite: “I felt I had the IQ of a poodle.”
What’s mundane? The description of people but that’s the thing. The character Gaia doesn’t care about what a being looks like on the outside. She cares about what is going on inside. Her years of practicing Transcendental Meditation have helped her develop a clear mind allowing her to stoically work through every behavior trigger.
What’s missing? There isn’t a lot of drama. Since these are explorations in the mind, she focuses on the key scenes that test her courage: taking an experimental serum, staying calm when subjected to intimidation, and remaining patient when building trust. If a life of meditation can be this exhilarating, who needs a vacation?
In the end, it’s a quest story about fulfilling destiny by going on an adventure with someone you trust enough to love. That’s a great achievement. I only hope our diplomat will beam back some information on how the negotiations with the Vesia and Ig'ra are going.