Eleven

“What the—” Julie’s mind shouted before she managed its control.

Her eyes held vision—easier than the rest, considering her body was pinned, trapped.

“What is this? Huh?”

She lay beneath the rubble of earth, piled high with shattered buildings, concrete, and weight that grew heavier by the second. Her breath dimmed—shallower and shallower—until stifling, hot stillness consumed her.

She surrendered, allowing her mind to invite the brilliant light that beckoned her. Once she did, the breath pulled into her lungs like a baby’s first—sharp, resilient, anew.

And when she peered around with fresh new eyes, she realized she was in a new world—new buildings, different shapes, different roads, beautiful foliage and trees she had not recognized before.

And before she knew it—she was.

Yet something loomed. She felt it, deep in the pit of her gut.

It didn’t take long; at least, time wasn’t measurable for her. Suddenly—it was happening again. The sounds, thunderous, monstrous; the world crumbling on top of her.

Her fourth-lady moment.

She had beauty, newness—and she was back beneath the rubble, no room to breathe.

And as the last bit of air released from her lungs, the familiar light returned—this time more blue than bright. Hues of lavender called out to her, and she allowed herself once more to succumb to the stillness and breathe no more.

She hadn’t the time to consider what was happening—or why. She didn’t even have

time—only a brief flicker of fear before everything folded inward again.

And then—the breath refilled her lungs. The weight lifted from her body.

“There, I believe again.”

As she slowly opened her eyes, she wondered, What kind of world will I be in this time? Will Ibe in a world?

She looked around—and again, newer buildings, different shapes. This time round, soft, gorgeous.

Her heart filled with excitement, but weaned again with ache for what she missed, what was.

But suddenly she didn’t have time for that—because the war started up. And she knew, now, what was going to occur. What was her life. And her end.

This occurred several times. She didn’t realize how many until she opened her eyes—and nothing fell, nothing rumbled.

Stillness.

And in that stillness, she thought back. Each moment, each world, each existence—different than the next.

So she counted.

She realized she had time to count.

One. Beautiful. City. Bright. Brilliant. New.

Two. Maybe even better than the one before. Colors vivid, bright—almost like a picture. After three, it dimmed each time. Buildings aged. Concrete worn.

She’s at eleven now. Eleven times the last.

Oh—it was the worst. The air rushed from her lungs so quickly.

“Well,” she thought to herself, “this wasn’t a dream.

I know I wasn’t sleeping—but if I tell anyone, they’ll say I fell asleep. That it was a nightmare.”

But it didn’t feel like a nightmare. Yes, parts were frightening, but no… not that. It wasn’t horror—it was truth.Maybe a premonition, though she didn’t quite believe in those. No, more like a realization—something shown to her, part visual, part feeling, but mostly breath.

Breath work through it all.

She thought harder on her experience—her becoming.

Each time the worlds changed, she could see the difference, but the feelings were never too overwhelming.

“Because I knew the light would shine for me again,” she thought.

Not just the light she saw, but the one she felt—the warmth that rose from somewhere deeper than her skin. It wasn’t the light of the sun, nor of lamps or stars. It was her own. It hummed softly beneath her ribs, like a remembered song.

She realized that each time she had returned, she brought a little more of it with her. At first, only a flicker—just enough to see the outline of her hands, trembling and real. Then, in later worlds, a glow that stretched outward, steady and patient. It was the kind of light that didn’t demand attention, only permission.

In those moments between collapse and awakening, she thought of what she had lost—her mother, her father, her son far too early. But it was the loss of her sister that tore through her most. That grief had a different texture; it wasn’t only sorrow but a fracturing of something shared, a mirror gone missing. The world had tilted differently after that.

And yet, even in the hollow ache, the light found her.

She began to understand that grief was not the absence of love but its echo, reverberating until it found its way home again. The pain was proof that she had loved deeply enough for the loss to matter—and that, too, was sacred.

She thought of how many times she had fought the darkness—how she once believed peace was perfection and chaos was punishment. But now, lying there between breaths, she saw it differently. Chaos, too, was divine movement.

The falling, the breaking, the burning—it was all rhythm.

“Perhaps,” she whispered to herself, “the world collapses only so the heart can learn how to open wider.”

Her mind drifted to the faces she had loved, the voices she had lost. Some had hurt her, others had healed her, but all had shaped her. They were the teachers of her eleven worlds.

“And maybe,” she thought, “every soul I’ve met has been one of my eleven too.”

A quiet laugh escaped her lips—half joy, half release.

“To think,” she murmured, “it took eleven endings to realize I was never broken.”

Some might be terrified at the thought of being smothered again and again—but she had faith.

“I have a true sense of who I am,” she whispered. “And this—this has only opened it wider. Bigger. Larger. A story to be told.”

And as time grew past, she grew in her love of life—of others, of sharing, of healing.

She knew what the end would feel like. She was not afraid.

She had not been a girl who grew up with much—not a lot of money, not much food or clothes, nothing new.

But she had a large family—eleven brothers and sisters—and somehow, that was everything. Hmm, she thought. Eleven.

The number whispered through her—worlds, endings, beginnings, family, breath, rebirth.

It had always been there.

And now she finally understood.

Author’s Note

This story is truth. It is what occurred to me at the beginning of my awakening—an experience beyond dream or premonition. The number eleven revealed itself only later, bridging the many worlds I passed through with the family I was born into. In this, I found not fear, but remembrance—that life, love, and breath are infinite.

The Meaning of Eleven

I was born into balance. Three older brothers and two older sisters above me; two younger sisters and three younger brothers below. Eleven children in all. And I was the center point—the bridge between the two worlds.

In numerology, my birth date, 8/7/1958, carries the vibration of the master number 11. It has always been the pulse beneath my life—the balanced rhythm, the ability to see beyond the dark chaos and into the illuminous light.

Perhaps that is why Eleven was born through me. It is not only a story of worlds falling and rising again—it is the remembrance of breathing through collapse, of living gently, and of knowing that kindness to self is what allows us to see the light when all else turns to shadow.