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John on the other hand was working his way out of emotional indigestion with the help of his computer and his headset: playing a game of snake while listening to some of his favorite trance. Years later he would acquire the logic behind this intuitive choice, namely that the hypnotic rhythm of the drum machine allowed him to enter low alpha-brain-wave states, whereas the amount of concentration needed to quickly respond to the challenges of the game kept him from becoming too relaxed and spacing out or falling asleep, thereby effectively putting his awareness into what is called an altered state of mind - a most skillful way to achieve insight. Knowing none of that at this point his little trick still worked like a charm.

He contemplated his mother's story about how Julia might have experienced the events of this fateful afternoon and reached the conclusion that all things considered, his behavior may not have made a lot of sense to her. He remembered that he actually was pretty chilled when grandpa appeared the first time to him at the lake, telling him about the pixie living in the tree right next to his tree house. And Julia had already been liquefying before Grandpa Sam showed up anyway, sobbing and admitting how lost she felt with her mom not being there for her and her dad moving out and all. So it really wasn't her fault that she had the bad luck to live in the big city where everything was loud and the nasty stench coming at you from all directions was something else! No wonder the sheer effort of surviving there made her brains go hiss.

Whenever he and his parents made a trip to the city he immediately parked himself in his favorite high-tech store and mercifully forgot about his environment as soon as he began to check out all the new stuff. Or the big bookstores! That was something he missed. But overall he knew he didn't slot too well with the big city and maybe all Julia suffered from was chronic mall hangover.

Having arrived at giving Julia the benefit of doubt, he decided to call her and apologize for his rash behavior. Start a new time-line. Erase file and John meets Julia take three. He let the snake bang into a wall and took his headset off just in time to hear his mother knock at the door.

"John? Can I come in? I have dad on the phone."

"WOW! Cool!" John jumped to open the door and grabbed the phone from Sarah's outstretched hand. "Hey dad! So cool! Blows my mind to think how my voice goes all the way up into orbit and then back down to you somewhere in the middle of the forest!" His excitement about technological magic instantly displaced any leftover anguish regarding his relationship to girls or childhood friends.

"Hi kiddo, good talking to you too!" Tom, remembering the reason for this phone call, restricted himself from discussing satellite technology and because straightforward, guileless communication was number-one law in the Freeman household he said, "So mom tells me your friend from the big city arrived today and that you were not entirely happy with your reunion. Now if you want a guy's perspective on the situation, I'm here."

"Okay. Thanks dad but I worked it out. You know how grandma Kate always says it's best to put yourself in the other person's shoes before you make up your mind about something? I guess that's what I did and it worked. So cool you're calling! Where exactly are you?"

It was clear to Tom that, at least for the moment, John had pretty much lost interest in whatever it was that had happened between him and Julia and judged it best to let it go. 'Gotta trust the offspring' was the baseline of Freeman parental discretion.

"Well, where exactly only God and the GPS know. All I can tell you is, it's dark, I can see a few stars only because our camp is at a small clearing, I hope we're making some progress work-wise, I haven't seen a Bigfoot yet but wouldn't be surprised if they were watching and I miss you guys terribly. How's that for an answer, buddy?"

"Miss you too dad. I wish I'd be old enough to go there with you. I think you have the coolest job camping out all summer long and getting paid for it too!" The admiration in John's voice almost made Tom choke.

"Yeah, but what about the part where I have to fight evil demons that attack our trees and being away from you guys for such a long time?"

Tom's scientific mind, long trained to be aware of even the smallest changes in any given environment, enabled him to notice a shift in John's responsiveness. Was it something he said? He stopped talking and allowed a moment of silence. When John started to speak it was hesitant, almost shy. Though it was obvious that he was trying to make light, the previously present buoyancy had left his voice, giving away the seriousness of the matter.

"Dad? Do you really believe that demons exist?"

Beat.

"Or - "

Beat.

"Ghosts?"

Tom could almost see how John's gaze focused somewhere near the tip of his nose, lips pressed together, the way he always did when sharing something that meant a great deal to him while pretending that it didn't. For Tom this meant walking the tightrope of parenting. Weighing the pros and cons of helping his son with an obviously touchy subject while being not physically present, he opted to let John take the lead.

"Do you mean as a scientist or as a personal belief?"

The question took John aback. "Whoa! You saying there could be scientific proof for ghosts?"

Aha, Tom mused, it's about ghosts then. Always having been somewhat shy himself, he was sensitive to the difficulty for his secretive Scorpio son to talk about this. Part of him considered Sarah so much more competent when it came to things unseen, however, just a second ago, he referred to John as his 'secretive Scorpio son.'

Consequently, he admitted that some of his own mother's ideas must have surely rubbed off on him. Kate held the firm belief in what she called 'a more natural world' populated by countless visible and invisible beings living more or less peacefully side-by-side.

"Well, there are known cases where ectoplasm has been photographed you know, some kind of matter we usually can't see with our eyes. Now whether that counts as scientific proof of ghosts I don't know. Then again, pretty much none of the things I deal with on a day-to-day basis in my lab are visible to the naked eye yet what I do is perceived to be straight science. So I guess it's all up to your own perspective, isn't it?" Entering more familiar grounds, Tom was warming to the subject. "And our new paradigm of science shows us anyhow that we can't divide our beliefs from our experiences. So I don't know John, I guess if you believe in what grandma Kate says, ghosts, or many other spirit beings for that matter, not only exist but are very much a part of our natural world. She believes the only reason why we don't see them is our arrogance."

"What's a paradigm then?" John wanted to know. Of course he had heard the word before but was foggy about its meaning.

"Sorry for using a big word without explanation. A paradigm. Hmm. You can look at it as a model of some kind, a model that includes its own symbols to describe it. So in a way it's always the frog describing its well thinking it's the ocean but it's the best we can do."

Lips still pressed together exactly the way his father had imagined, John's eyes now slowly moved upward, contemplating what Tom had said.

"OK, thanks dad. I get mom back on the phone for you," and before Tom could say his proper good-byes he heard John's feet stomping down the hallway while yelling "mom, it's dad." A loud clank told him the phone had been disposed onto the table, and ruefully counting the seconds of unused satellite time it seemed to take Sarah forever to get back on the line.

"So, this is good-bye then, lover?" Playfully. "Something you want me to know before I hang up?" Sarah thought in case John was still near, he would blank this out as adult-talk.

"We opened a door and you know our son, he's going to walk through. All I can say for now is watch out for anything ghost-related but don't push. And mostly, mommy, don't worry. He's fine." A deep sigh. "Oh honey, I miss you. I'll call again in a few days but you know if anything happens, if you guys need me, holler and I come running."

"I love you too." Sarah, heart wide, hung up the phone.

Back in his room John's head was spinning; too many questions surfing high amplitudes in his brain. As before, all these many years later he would come to understand how certain experiences have the power to permeate our whole being, thereby affecting lasting change in brain chemistry. On his journey to this realization he would learn that voluntary generation of such experiences can be practiced if not mastered through certain types of meditation. For now he crashed onto his bed staring at the ceiling as if to read the answers from the pristine white wall above.

So his dad actually thought ghosts could exist! And grandma Kate believed it too. Maybe he should stop being so disinterested in her only because she didn't bake chocolate chip cookies and wore funny clothes instead of starched aprons. Maybe her gifts to him lay elsewhere, like bringing interesting new perspectives to his life. So when she came around next time he would make an effort to get to know her better. Now dad mentioned she talks about ghosts and other spirit beings living in this natural world, whatever that may be. And didn't Grandpa make the same distinction between spirits and ghosts? Questions questions questions!

The book! How could he have forgotten the book? In one vigorous leap he was off the bed to rummage around in the corner where a massive stack of books waited for his attention. Spiderman. Flatland. Neil Gaiman. King Arthur. Alice in Wonderland. Goosebumps. Discworld. Sophie's World. Professor Vibes. Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Where was the book? In a flash the answer appeared in form of an image: 'The Alchemy of Death and Birth' sat on the mattress in his tree house by the lake. Blast. He checked the clock. 9 PM. Too late to go there tonight and get it. A new paradigm. Our beliefs inseparable from our experience. Of course that's what the hero of one of his favorite books, Professor Vibes, said too, but what does it all mean? And why was it not enough to say, "I believe my book is right here in front of me," for the 'Alchemy of Death and Birth' to leave the tree house and appear in his room? Whereas he didn't even know if he believed in ghosts, and grandpa Sam showed up anyway? Maddening! More questions!

A frog in a well thinking it to be the ocean. Now at least this made perfect sense to him. His dad had used this example before whenever he complained about narrow-minded colleagues or when he challenged John to think outside the box. Whatever. The most important thing for him right now was the information that there were two people in his family who thought ghosts might actually exist.

He left his room to look for his mother and found her cuddled up in a blanket on the sofa, reading. As soon as he moved towards her she put the book down.

"Hey," she said, free hand patting the cushion by her side, nonverbally asking him to join her. Not giving this invitation any consideration, John dropped onto the lambskin in front of the coffee table. His mother sometimes jokingly called him her little yogi since he always preferred sitting cross-legged on the floor to lounging in the even most comfortable chair. This made him think of his dad again and how in his tent he must be sitting on the floor right now as well, adolescent idealism clouding his perception to the fact that Tom's tent was outfitted with the best portable, state-of-the-art high-tech laboratory equipment money could buy. Certainly a desk and a chair were not items missing.

"Mom?" thoughtfully. "Dad said grandma Kate believes in a natural world. Do you know what that means?"

Sarah, immediately aware that this question might lead to one of the 'ghost-related-issues' Tom advised her to be mindful of, took a moment before she replied.

"Well, of course I can't speak for grandma Kate and what that means to her, but if you ask me and what it means to me maybe that'll do?"

John could hardly believe his luck. "So you believe in this natural world too then?"

"I guess I do and for me it all centers around my definition of the word natural. Natural to me is just another word for life or rather for life-force expressing itself effortlessly, naturally, in a gazillion different forms. And while we have advanced so far with our respective sciences we are not at all closer than our cavemen ancestors to understanding what that life-force actually is. The only thing that has changed in this regard are our symbols, the many ways we try to describe it."

Sarah took a sip of her tea and John used the pause to ask, "Our paradigms have changed, is that it?"

"Yes, that's it, our models of describing what we see continue to change as we evolve intellectually and we think we get a better understanding of what's going on. But in essence, we don't know. And to me, humbly accepting this fact means making room to experience a world outside of artificially created phenomena, a more natural world," and hesitatingly, "basically allowing the possibility of the mysterious, with luck even of the mystical, to enter my awareness..." Pulling up one shoulder, a skeptical expression on her appealing face as her mind trailed behind her words, she added, "Of course this is only my personal opinion and it may be entirely false," shoulders coming down, skeptic frown transfiguring into a beaming smile, "but it works for me coz it keeps me curious and wide open to explore things that may sound crazy and self-indulgent to others."

"Why do you make a difference between mysterious and mystical?" John wanted to know. This is going really well, he thought.

With new confidence Sarah answered, "Because some things may be a total mystery to me, like the stuff dad is doing in his lab yet to him it makes complete sense. That means it's mysterious coz I don't have the necessary information. I lack the frame of reference for understanding whereas dad in this case does not. Mystical on the other hand is all that is beyond any intellectual framework, outside any paradigm, to use this word again. Something that can only be realized on a much deeper level than cognitive understanding." Sarah, listening to herself, could hardly believe she was having this challenging philosophical discussion with her twelve-year-old son. How blessed they were! She made a silent wish for all parents to enjoy this kind of relationship with their kids.

As if reading her thoughts John said, "Oh mom, I really miss grandpa Livingston! He used to talk to me about that stuff all the time and now he's gone and I'm left with too many questions."

"I know darling," said Sarah feeling her son's sadness, "But happily you're only twelve years old..."

"...almost thirteen ..."

"... sorry. Almost thirteen years old and hopefully living to be a hundred. So I say we leave solving the puzzle of understanding everything about everything for another day. You had a quite big one and an overworked brain becomes part of the problem rather than contributing to the solution."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. All that stuff is swirling in my head like the stars in the Whirlpool Galaxy."

"Now here's a perfect example of the many things that are a mystery to me," said Sarah only half jokingly.

"Ok then," John generously, "it's swirling in my head like dust in a vacuum cleaner, how's that for a girl's frame of reference?"

"Well thanks, sir. Let's just hope I've not created a sexist monster here but true, I do know more about dust than I even care to know. Just look around!" The housekeeper in charge of maintaining a sparkling clean environment for the Freeman's was due tomorrow. "Unlike the dust in this living room though, dust in our natural world often takes care of itself if we don't interfere too much. So what do you say, I make us a cup of hot chocolate and we call it a night?"

"Thanks mom," said John and getting up from his cross-legged position in one elegant move, headed back to his room.

"That was a 'no thanks' then I suppose," Sarah was too absorbed in her own thoughts to be bothered by the abrupt ending of their summit on knowing all there is to know. Rubbing her brow with the palm of her hand as if to wipe her head clear, she forced herself to stop thinking about everything this long day had brought. Taking her own advice, she went to get some hot chocolate and retire for the night.