Chapter 112
At the temple:
Once they climbed the stairs and were inside, Catalina could feel the sudden energy shifting, not a negative one, but warm instead. Light, positive and heavy at the same time.
It was maybe the decorations in black and gold ropes and the cheetah paintings carved in the cupola. Dynamic carvings representing material and spiritual worlds connecting all in one. Happy dancing girls painted in bring and yellow colors, attribute to their culture and to who the southern were today.
The smell was earthly divine, mostly coming from the honey candles surrounding the inside, making you taste a sweet smell. Their fresh fruits near to every goddess statue around and flowers to make them decorated like living people were totally giving a vibe that life neither stopped nor started here, it was in a continuing motion.
While standing in the middle of the altar, the priestess faced them and added in her enchanting voice as well:
\-“In this sacred land the goddess promised us to help every lost spirit or those people that faced injustice in life to get justice in the next one, no matter where they come from. To humankind the body has a geographical origin, to the goddess the spirits are one in only one Earth.”
This was amazing, Catalina thought to herself.
Suddenly she heard a fire lighting noise. It was the priestess lighting the fire from the well that was in the center, but to her surprise, it started as a regular fire and after the priestess chanted some words it turned into a blue smoke, surrounding them.
\-“Come, we should get closer.” Zuleica said to her.
She followed along both mesmerized and curious at the same time.
\-“My dear child Catalina, have you heard about constellation reading? It is about your spiritual origins and your past life.” The priestesses confessed at her, guiding her into another divine world.
\-“Faintly, I have heard some modern psychology and spiritualist doing that, but I have never given it a try. I guess I did not have the time.” She answered sincerely.
\-“The universe approaches to show you your past only when you are bold enough to see and hear it?” She questioned her, showing a warm smile.
\-“I feel like I have met some wise Buddhist monk now and talking with them right now.”
That caught Zuleica’s attention and made her laugh.
\-“Well, are we all not part of the same universe? Of course everything is connected.”
\-“Ok now girls, let’s start.” The priestess asked Catalina. – “What is your birthday and the day of the week you have born?”
Then Catalina told her, and the priestess closed her eyes and started speaking in another language. The more she spoke with her closed eyes the more the blue smoke intensified. It made Catalina mesmerized and glancing at Zuleica exhaling how amazing that was.
They were surrounded by blue smoke now and it did not smell like one, even though it started to intensify. Zuleica knew this was another dimension for her and still she was happy that Catalina decided to give it a try. She knew from the beginning she had a heart of gold and always protected and helped others. Mostly like she had done for her tribe most of her life.
\-“Catalina, come closer to me so I can paint your arm with my ink.”
Catalina went closer to her, allowing the priestess to brush her arms with a white small brush, smelling like oil and white lily flower. She saw that other woman around had same painting in their arms and chins same as the priestess was drawing on her.
\-“We thank the goddess for creating the universe and we cheer them for the knowledge they share with us.” Then she locked her hands with Catalina as they both continued sitting on the ground around the well with their legs crossed.
Soon the priestess had all her life changing form in front of her eyes, it was like broken images to her from her past energy that marked her soul, and they were passed with her unconscious. And for a moment she saw something that shocked her core and exhaled.
\-“Priestess what is it? What did you see?” Zuleica asked curiously as she opened her eyes. Catalina was not sure if it was a bad or a good thing.
Smiling with her tired wrinkled eyes the priestess smiled at Catalina almost with tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes.
\-“The goddess really had their ways to make everything right in this universe.” She spoke.
\-“
What did you feel, what did you see? Is it good or bad?” Catalina asked a bit worried now.
Still having their hands together, she started telling her about her visions.
\-“Spiritually you have lived many lives that shaped your character and the fire that made you today who you are. Our spirits take different forms and gender during different time, but you are the first to surprise me to the deep core.”
\-“What is it priestess?” Zuleica interrupted her curious as both.
\-“While reading your constellation I also found the answer to my visions.” After pausing for a while she added. “It is no coincidence that you and Zuleica have known each other in this life as you both were connected at your past life.”
\-“What?” That shocked both girls.
\-“But priestess, you told me I had the form of the cat in my past life dying from a melancholy of a beloved loss, while coming around lands as part of a gypsy group.”
Zuleica reminded her as she too was surprised how her past life could be connected to Catalina, even though she knew that souls were always seen through different era.
\-“Really?” Catalina was shocked by the revelation.
\-“Yes, and before that I was a Mongolian soldier, fighting at the border, and before that a Jewish widow selling in the Ottoman era…” then she paused and added again: ..”anyway I can go a lot, but we are gathered tonight here for you not me.”
\-“Your souls are connected got more than one cycle. She was the beloved feline, your partner that you lost on the fire that was going on, on the camp.”
Catalina was now shocked.
\-“I am not sure now, should I be shocked that I died from a fire or that I was a cat? And what was I before that?”
\-“There is a reason your name is part feline, and you have some old treaty abilities that your soul preserves in your unconscious. In this lifetime, the universe saved you from the shooting fire, because you were already burned in your last life and it is paying the debt in this life. This…” the priestess knew that she would be touched by her next words but still added painfully. “This was the reason why you were saved from the kidnapping when you were little, and your brother didn’t, otherwise you both would have been shot!”
Catalina never knew that her tears would explode so easily, the moment a perfect stranger to her in that moment would say something so personal that no one had ever told her.