AE on Norwich Island Part 21

Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island

Part 21

August 19^th, 1937

As the sun climbed in the east, she walked up the beach onto the long windward side, along the edge of the high tide line. The sun made the beach slope golden, and cast her shadow clear up into the bushes.

“It’s been over a month.  I think” 

She walked ten or twelve paces.

“No one’s coming.” 

More paces.

“Not on purpose, anyway.  Not for me.” 

“They think I’m gone.”

“Dead”

“Crashed and sank.”

“They’ve called off the search.”

More paces.  Strayed into dry sand and stumbled, returned to the wet-packed sand at the ocean’s edge.

“Not Gene.”

Really? Gene was… she smiled at the thought of their times together… but was he – faithful? Devoted? Of course not.

“Not G.P.”

No, G.P. would carry on.  He would explore every option, call out every troop.  She smiled wryly.

“Pounding on the White House door.” 

She stopped, stood still.

“Psychics.”

G.P. would call on the psychics – already had, no doubt.  There were probably séances going on all over America.  People trying to find her, contact her, communicate, view her location and condition.

“Maybe that’s why…..”

The dreams?  The feelings in the trees?  The Lady?  No, not Boo-Ka – she was home-grown, indigenous, part of the island somehow, native to the place.  But that was not to say…..

“Stirring up the spirits…….”

But why had her own attempts at psychic projection been such failures?  Her own mind had gone nowhere.

“Or maybe it did.  Maybe I did.  Maybe…..”

Maybe that’s where she had been. 

Or maybe not – there was plenty to get in the way of a successful projection.  The ones she’d had in the past – the remarkably right-feeling flash vision of the lost United DC2, and her complicated dream about the Western Air Express Boeing – had come when she had been totally relaxed, comfortable, with no immediate worries.

“Not the case here.”

But maybe it was time to try again. Harder.

“Harder, but more relaxed.”

Yes, worth a try.                                    

She worked through the day getting ready. Distilled enough water to top off the water bags, caught and ate a good-sized fish, bathed, treated her many cuts and scratches with her diminishing supply of antiseptics. Re-wrapped her swollen foot.  Found a comfortable spot on the windward side a few hundred yards northeast of her camp, under a big tree – easy to climb if the spirit moved her, and facing east, though she had no idea if that made any difference.  Used the bone-handled knife to cut light branches to make a soft – well, relatively soft – nest on the ground.  Ate the last of the fish, sipped a little Benedictine, had a relatively good night’s sleep in her hammock, unmolested by crabs.

August 20^th, 1937

In the cool of early morning, sunlight just beginning to spread across the eastern sky, she nibbled a few slices of hog apple, drank water and a sip of Benedictine, brushed her teeth with sand and chewed a few leaves for freshness.  Left a pile of fish and fish parts to keep the crabs busy, and limped up the beach.  A sea turtle had come ashore in the night and left a stirred-up patch of beach – undoubtedly her own nest.  She made a mental note; it might be time to think of eating turtle eggs.

“Or a turtle, for that matter.” 

No. Now was not the time to be bloody-minded.

Finding her nest under the big tree, she settled back and watched the sunrise flowing up the eastern sky.  There were dark, stately clouds along the horizon, thin white ones lightening up overhead.  Birds sailing out to sea – Frigate birds, Red-Tailed Tropic Birds with their long streamers, boobies, terns.  She reminded herself not to classify them, not to think about them at all.  To clear her mind.  Half-closed her eyes, let them lose focus.

But – the thought rose up unbidden – over there, under the sunrise, was America.  Home.  But it was rather to the north…..

“Stop it, Amelia.” 

She closed her eyes, closed her mind to ideas, tried to banish conscious thought.  Tried to be conscious only of her body, and only of its relaxed state, not of its sore spots and injuries.  Flexed her muscles and released them slowly – first toes, then leg muscles.  Fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, neck.  Concentrated on breathing, regularly, in and out, deep inhalations, long slow exhalations.

Boo-Ka was there!  She could see her in the reddish darkness behind her eyelids.  She experienced a flash of alarm – would, did, The Lady disapprove? 

She didn’t seem to.  Didn’t seem to be doing anything, just watching.  No words, no gestures.  Amelia smiled at her, and she seemed to smile back.  Approval, or at least acceptance. She relaxed.

Hovering on the edge of sleep, she let her mind drift to her left hand, pictured herself clenching the fingers, relaxing.  Again.  Again.  Then the right.  Then her toes, vaguely enjoying the thought-sensation of curling her left toes without pain.  Imagined moving legs, arms, head, all without physically doing so.

Ideally, according to the psychics, she ought to start feeling her body vibrate as her mind-spirit prepared to leave it, but she didn’t.  Never had, but she had experienced this wakeful-but-unconnected, comfortable, open feeling before, and it had led to visions …..

Like what she was now experiencing.  Not a vision, exactly, but – she avoided the temptation to categorize it, describe it.  She felt herself floating, expanding, reaching out with her whole self to contact…..

My goodness, what a lot of – beings out there, all reaching toward her, seeking her.  No visible forms, no audible sounds, just the feeling of many, many – people? – anxious to know where she was, what she was doing, feeling.

Well, OK, she had prepared for this.  Carefully, without forcing it, formed images of the island.  Its coral reefs, crashing surf, rubbly beaches, great trees, lagoon.  Painted in the shipwreck and let the name form effortlessly in her mind:

“Norwich.  Norwich City.  Norwich.”

She tried – still without trying – to envision where she was relative to Howland Island, make it clear that she was to the south.  Found it challenging, disturbing, to frame the abstraction “south,” gave it up.  Drifted to envisioning Fred dying, the Electra going over the reef edge. Tried to convey that she was alive, healthy, but needed help.  Again struggled with the abstractions…..

“Ouch!” 

If she had been outside her body she was now suddenly, definitively, in it, rolling around trying to dislodge the giant crab that had insinuated itself into her hair.  She couldn’t see it but it seemed intent on eating her head.  Its claws and legs were all wrapped up in her hair; it was not about to let go.  When she tried to grab it, it nipped at her – nipped a finger, nipped her ear.

“Goddamgodawfulbastardcrab!” 

She scrambled to her feet, unbalanced by the crab’s weight, and shook her head wildly.  The crab hung on, riding her head like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. 

She turned, staggered, and then dove, plunging headfirst at the trunk of the big gray-barked tree.  The crab’s body made a welcome crunching, squishing sound as it struck, and it lost its grip, falling to the ground.  She jumped back, whirled around, and despite the pain in her foot kicked it in what passed for its face.  It flew at least three feet before hitting a bush.  She sat down hard as it shook itself and retreated a foot or so into the foliage.

“You… you…” 

“Yep, it’s me.  Disturbed your little confab, did I?”

“You bit me!”

“Pinched you, to be precise.  I haven’t actually tasted you yet.  But I can wait.”

“I can’t, you sonofabitch!”  She looked around for a big rock, couldn’t find one.

“It’s OK, Meelie, I can tell when I’m not wanted.  Carry on, carrion.” 

It turned and scuttled away.

She sat for a minute or two, breathing hard.  Her ear and right middle finger were bleeding; so was her foot. She needed to get to the first aid kits.  That was job number one; she struggled to her feet and hobbled back toward camp.

There, using her injured finger to apply an iodine-soaked gauze compress to her ear and then to her foot, she took stock.  Had she gotten through?  Had she communicated?  Those – beings, those entities reaching out to her, they must have been, surely were, all the psychics – self-aware and not – trying to communicate with her.  Had she communicated? 

“I think so.  Maybe.”

Which was the best she was going to do, for now at least.  The bleeding had stopped; she clumsily bandaged her ear and finger, rewrapped her foot, and started the fire, put the still on to boil.

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Notes

“G.P. would call on the psychics – already had, no doubt.” And they were calling on him.  See Finding Amelia p. 219 and http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Jennings_Article/Psychicsarticle.html

“…the lost United DC2, and … the Western Air Express Boeing.” See http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2009/11/piloting-the-astral-plane-was-amelia-earharts-last-message-a-psychic-sos/ See also Sound of Wings pp. 237-8.

“…those entities reaching out to her….” See Courage Is the Price p. 202 and http://www.ameliaearhartmovie.com/georgeputnampsychics.html for discussion of Putnam’s enlistment of psychics to find Earhart, and results.