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The Zebra
“Zebra energy will help you to take the apparently conflicting parts of your personality and weave them into a pattern which is unique, distinctive and beautiful. As a zebra, the artist within you can live in harmony with the businessperson, the spiritual explorer with the secular decision-maker, the dreamer with the practical goal-setter, neither overpowering the other, each retaining its place of importance and full expression. The zebra will teach you to honor the black and white sides of yourself without compromising yourself into a dull gray.
The zebra will also teach you how to seek out others who are like you, finding comfort and company in groups, while maintaining your own unique identity, your pattern of stripes like a fingerprint, unlike any other. This combination of individuality within community will be a very powerful force in your life.

The zebra energy is also the energy of physical health, long life and great stamina. Breathe in this vital source of very real physical power. Feel how you are capable of running across the plains for hour after hour, each step filling you with vibrant earth energy, so that the more you exercise, the more energized you become. Then just kick up your heals with joy, for you are the zebra, vital and alive. How fortunate you are!”

Accounts of the Journey to the Lower Realm

Eric
I was at a steppe first, like I was meditating in the desert, then went through a forest entrance, and stayed under a tree. There were lots of sounds and animals life, flapping wings sounds, deers, ants, but the most vivid presence was that of snake, and I was a bit suspicious, but it came back very gently, inviting, and after I recognized it, it made me journey, travelling like a dragon or feathered multicolored snake to an ancient place.
The snake analogy with shedding old skin comes to mind, after accepting it, it makes a lot of sense.
I saw green and purple at times.
I felt a horse too but it was just a hooves’ sound.

Flove
I went through the entrance to a cave. I asked my power animal to come. An ancient tortoise came up to me. I asked if this was my power animal but i felt such love for the tortoise that i felt that was my answer. We explored energetically what the tortoise wisdom i need is. I put my hand around the tortoise neck and we swam in the water.
I wanted to cry, I loved the tortoise energy so much. And the protection of the tortoise shell.
I saw a snake.
The horse was the first animal I felt, right as I went in the entrance. I stroked the horse as i went by.
I saw a unicorn too, [and ]was surprised by the unicorn.
I didn’t sense many creatures. just the horse, the snake and the unicorn.

Jib
First I saw little white skulls, whistling like the shells of the guy in the video.
Then I become my shaman self and I have my magic cape. I find the entrance [to the lower realm,] which was kind of difficult at first as if there was some distracting energy.
I finally enter the lower realm and find my horse right away, he’s very excited and I ride with him for some time, just for the pleasure of being with an old friend.
Then I ask him to lead me to Abalone and show me whatever is interesting.
He leads me to see an old shaman, man or woman I don’t know.
The shaman makes me sit in his room and offers me tea, then tells me to relax and wait.
So I relax and I begin to project to Abalone as the Giant beanstalk, I begin to grow and grow and grow and have the city built on top of me. I am the whole island.
I have the impression that the beanstalk is in the center of Gazalbion or very close to it
Then I come back to the place and have the impression the Shaman wants to delay me, so I say thanks and ask my horse to show me the rest.
We go the the old Temple and I feel that there is something special there, once again he tells me to relax and just allow not look for things.
So I wait and feel that the time and space is weird that it flows around the stones in a particular way, like when you follow a certain path or corridor, you may go forward in time and another way lead you back in time. If you take a wrong turn you can end up in a loop.
Then the signal for the return begins, so I go back from where I come from and thank my horse.
It was cool and fun to be there again.
I projected at some point to check if everyone was ok, and felt like it was fine.
I saw a unicorn too.

Tracy
That was interesting, about half way through a zebra started follwing me, well on my right. I saw all kinds of animals, but they were all doing their own thing or turned away, except for the zebra, until the change of tempo and then I was swept up in a flock of cranes I think (or herons or storks but I think cranes), but then the zebra was waiting at the top. I could feel his warm muzzle sort of on my right shoulder.
First was a field full of unicorns on the left but they were just grazing, then a bison head who turned away, then the group of deer I thought, but the zebra walked over to me grazing. Me and the zebra waited for goats to cross our path.
The feeling of being in amongst the cranes was amazing and the zebra fell back while that was happening, but then at the end he was waiting.
I was surprised by the unicorns cos I don’t even think about them usually.
There were lizards sucttlign around under the cranes.
A couple of times I strongly saw purple and green, and thought of Jib.<i> not really ask [the zebra if he was the power animal] in words, but his presence calmly walking beside me with the feeling of his muzzle on my shoulder was comforting.
When the cranes distracted me from him he fell back, but he was waiting at the top.
The cranes feeling was marvelous, really, they were all flapping gracefully all around me on the ascent. So cranes and zebra stand out the most.
[At some point] I started going down old stone steps, at first me and FP were kids holding hands, with jib and eric behind us, then I thought, wait, I’m supposed to be doing this alone.
The unicorns in the very beginning were in a castle courtyard type place but they ignored me.
Then a bison head who turned away these were in niches in the stone walls
I ended up in a stalactites type cave, but there were mostly old old stone steps with stone walls along the sides.
There was a crowd of people, well a small gathering, towards the bottom, but they were, er, faceless. Innocuous.
I am quite amazed at how great that was! and how many creatures actually popped up
and how the feeling was of the zebra and the cranes.
The zebra was stoic and steadfast and comforting, the cranes were exhilarating and uplifting.</i>

The Master Builder’s verdict was hard to swallow.

“Your Holiness?”

The P’hope knew his options were limited, but somehow he had hoped, in spite of the King’s disappearance, in spite of the odds, that somehow he could manage to keep the City afloat.
But the beanstalk’s wilting was not something that could be stopped, and the aphids were just one manifestation of the rampant symptoms. Like all living things, there was an expiry date, a deep-rooted belief in death that trumped all the efforts.
The only thing they could do was to prepare for a difficult landing, and salvage what could be salvaged of his beautiful City of Karmalott.

“Your Holiness?”

“I heard you the first time, Downson.” The P’hope carefully removed his silver zucchetto and put it aside.
“We need to prepare for evacuation. Have the Sentries prepare all the storks and cranes they can find. Send a detachment of Magi to secure an encampment at a safe landing spot. Then give orders to evacuate all the people you can.”

“What about you, Your Holiness?” Downson’s question was likely to be pure formality, but Jube answered nonetheless

“I’ll go to an ancient place, the source of power of this island. I wished I could avoid it, but if there is a glimmer of hope, it is my holy duty to follow it.”

“Shall we send people to escort you?”

“No, I would prefer to go there alone. It is the kind of powerful places one would prefer to visit alone than badly accompanied.”

“Then, good luck to you.”

“As well, Downson.”

The P’hope could be seen everywhere: leading the Builders to work double shifts to strengthen the collapsing structures of the flying City, exhorting the Magi to contain the failing beliefs of people back to virtuous resilience by ways of special masses held throughout Karmalott, and ensuring with the Sentries that all tremors of civil unrest was properly contained and the ring leaders properly admonished into good conduct.

The situation at the secret political prison known as Gazalbion was alarming. With most of the dangerous interlopers free to roam Abalone, and no walls to contain new prisoners, it could take a while to rebuild its walls, and the P’hope didn’t have the luxury of time on his side. It meant that no civil and belief dissidents could be brought there at the moment, and any spark of disobedience could spread like wildfire.

The P’hope dreaded what could happen if, despite all the efforts, the beanstalk was beyond repair. He knew his faltering belief in it could only hasten its fate, but even so, he wanted to be ready for the worst.
Considering the limited amount of rescue storks which were available off the walls of the city, it was likely that the result would be of apocalyptic proportion. Nevertheless, he refused to consider evacuating for the moment, even knowing it would take days for those on foot to climb down the bean’s tendrils.
Especially, as he was now in the perfect position to be the hero of the day.

…

He had been robbed of his share of light many, many years ago.
At the time, a young boy had arrived from the sea and from an outside world to Abalone. Jube, who was not yet the P’hope, was a striving leader of a group of survivors of the island. The bog’s dangerous and foggy emanations and its wild life were a threat of all instants, and he had soon realized there was strength in numbers. Many lost souls had gathered, but didn’t have the strength on their own to remain focused on a reality they wanted, a dream made reality.

He, Jube the Brave, had such strength in himself. But even so, they were only less than a few dozens of men and women in the camp, and the reach of what they could create was only good enough to sustain them for short periods of time.

But the boy named George had arrived from afar, and things had changed gradually. Jube had found out pretty quickly that the boy had the great potential to bring people together, and hold their beliefs like a mighty rope made of the thinnest of strands of hair. So he had offered to mentor him, while at the same time working his words into suggestions, and shaping the boy’s future to fit his own dreams.

That’s how the beanstalk started. The first sprouts were so tiny and frail, but the more people came and believed in the leadership of the one who was to become their King, the more it grew, and lifted them above the clouds and the fog of their minds.
Years had passed, Prince George became King Artie as another suggestion of the P’hope which had the side-effect to cloak Artie from his memories. The P’hope grew in power, always in the shadows however.

For a while, people were happy. Truly happy. But progress was inevitable, consciousness had to move and grow, otherwise their dream of a City would have been another foggy and soul-numbing projection of their feeble minds.

The first real threat happened when Abalone, in one of its inexplicable changes of time and space, drew to them a stranger. True to their principles, they had welcomed her, nursed her, and given her a place of choice in the Magi’s ranks despite her young age. But she could see clearly between the cracks and the varnish of order. Worse, she could see the P’hope’s intentions were not so pure.

So it become soon apparent to Jube that the young Gwinie had to disappear, and her followers had to be contained. For the sake of the great Karmalott, and to shield everyone from the impending chaos, the same chaos they had came from victorious many years ago.

He and his minions had struck in a very swift and coordinated movement. Gwinie was tragically lost in the bog during her rite of passage. A truce was arranged with her followers, and they were allowed a concession, with enough resources to survive. They ultimately built Gazalbion, which also became, in a mutual arrangement, a political prison for Karmalott, unknown to virtually everyone in the City. The Processor, one of Gwinie’s former followers, was glad to receive prisoners who would add to the strength and mass beliefs of his encampment. The P’hope in return, was glad to be rid of difficult problems.

That was so long ago, but it rang like a warning from no further than yesterday.

They had never found out what the old temple’s ruins were for, or by which civilization before them they were built. They were as old as the island itself, and seemed to be doomed, full of an ominous power he couldn’t and feared to harness. If anything else failed, he would go back there. Maybe that was his only solution.

Cheung Lok felt himself fall suddenly with nothing to hold on to, when the elephant he was riding suddenly shrank to human size knocking him down to the ground, partly unconscious after the event.
This Sanso, sure is 麻烦 [¹]. I must to start to believe harder in my luck was his thought before he lost consciousness.

On the other side of Sanso, a strange man with a turban was struggling with a bizarre striped dog-sized sea cucumber with teeth. Meanwhile, his target, Sanso seemed to leave back to the encampment’s ruins with… his elephant turned… something else.

That was all he could remember when he woke up a few minutes later and wondered what had happened and how Sanso could have slipped away again.
Noticing how he was tracking a man that seemed to make a point at having no discernible pattern, the realization came in a flash of blinding certainty that Sanso knew probably nothing at all about Irina, and surely didn’t care at all about warning her. In other words, Cheung Lok was on his own, and the painful clarity was soothed in equal measure by the other realization that he could let go of this 王八蛋^².

Looking around, he noticed the guy with the turban still struggle with the appetizing stripped sea cucumber.
“Hold steady pal, I’ll ezap that bugger.”
The other who had turned almost purple took a series of short breaths when he was released from the monster. “Thanks mate, those things are my bane.”
“No need to thank me, I’ll deep-fry it for us later. Care to join?”
“Hell why not. Name’s Berberus by the way. And you shouldn’t trust elephants here. It is known.”
“Thanks for the tip, pal. Cheung Lok.”
“You’re going back after Sanso?”
“No, it’s pointless, I just happened to find him on my way to a series of turbulences on the island and couldn’t pass the opportunity, but that one is more slippery than a wet snail during monsoon.”
“What is monsoon?” Berberus asked perplexed by the yellow faced man with the strange accent.
“Don’t you mind that. Shall we go?”

___

[¹] 麻烦 máfan in Chinese, can be roughly translated as ‘irritating piece of hemp’, meaning being trouble or vexatious —or some may argue, in this case, unbelievably lucky and difficult to keep track of, in a continuous way or any other way.

[²] 王八蛋 wángbā dàn : “The King’s eighth egg”, a colourful Chinese way of insulting people, meaning roughly “bastard”.

Cheung Lok heard the news of the Processor’s death along with the others.

He’d been parachuted on the island of Abalone some days ago, he started to lose count. Shortly after being dropped by the airplane, with a platoon of a few others that he had lost since, he started to hallucinate elephants falling from the sky, and had wondered for a brief time about the true nature of the island, and the peril he had more or so willingly thrown himself in.

He had not expected the fancy welcome committee. Some comely ladies in alluring flying gowns leading him towards a promise of a nearby city, only to find himself inside a barren walled city.
He would have escaped by now, but something in the newly arrived prisoners (or settlers as they were called) caught his attention, when they started to mention Sanso. He couldn’t actually believe his luck, which made them disappear for a while, then after he realized he had to be more of a believer, he found himself sent forward in the waiting line, just next to the others in the so-called waiting room. He’d learnt the woman was named Lisa, and countless other useless information about dog herding, hair conditioning and lazy bowel movement, but little more about Sanso.

Panic had started to spread among the small city, as huge boulders of earth started to fall from the skies and crack open on the soft land, toppling parts of the walls encircling Gazalbion. The news of the loss of the Processor led to even more confusion.

Cheung Lok decided it was time to pursue his mission, and extract the information the others had not yet given to him, by force if needed —he was a capable qigong master, who would crush nuts with his butt cheeks as a training, and that was the least of his deadly capacities.
But apparently, the woman named Lisa and her travelling companions had disappeared already.
In the midst of the confusion, it was hard to tell where they could have gone.

That’s when he was reminded of the shifting map, that the map dancer had drawn. He took it out of his front pocket, and unwrapped it cautiously.
The island’s lines were shifting even more erratically than before, but somehow there was a smaller concentration of activity at a location not far from where he guessed he was.
One of the rescued elephants would be good to ride out of this mess he thought, looking for the source of the trumpeting noises.

Jube, the P’hope, was quite alarmed by the rate at which the beanstalk seemed to wilt.
The beanstalk was a symbol of his power, as he was the first to believe about it, that the City of Karmalott could be lifted up of the island. At least, that was how the story grew after years of rewrite and belief honing.
He would usually take such news with passion, and use it to his advantage, but this was different.
Something or someone had started to shift and mess the balance of beliefs that he had carefully put in place during his many years in charge.

If any indication, the mass belief organs’ melody was more frequently played out of tune, and he even noticed the strangest birds fly around and in his garden —birds that weren’t supposed to be created in the first place.

One of the biselords greedier than the others, vying for more power would be a rational explanation. Usually that would happen, and be a good cause for public trial and execution by flying them through the beansdoor. For people’s protection of course.

But this case seemed more profound, more serious.
The last report from the team of magi was filled with such unusual unbelievable rubbish, that he wondered if the hairy scent of a revved olution was coming from down below. Now he had allowed the tool called snorkel into mass beliefs, he had a use for some skilled snorkelling spiessassins. He called for Berberus, his turbaned minion with a hook-leg —he’d lost it to a tiger slug, which then paid for it dearly. Berberus being a defrocked magi meant he had training enough to survive the conditions outside the city, and his skills as a master of arms (and legs) would be required.

After Berberus was gone for his undercover mission, Jube wondered if someone had found out yet the lost ruins of the old temple —they were secured and buried deep under a very long time ago and memory of them erased. He shivered at the thought of them being rediscovered.

“What a…” King Artie almost lost his smile after being dumped by Arona on the edge of the cliff.
Fear not, little chipmunk, I will have you soon wrapped around my finger…

He looked inside his bag for the precious bottled elixir. He’d managed to steal it from the P’hope’s apothescary. Among a bizarre collection of dried insects, the P’hope had some vials of pure waterbee’s royal jelly mixed with p’hopolis.
Collecting the essence of flowers from all over the kingdom and distilling the mass beliefs into this life-sustaining elixir, the waterbees royal jelly and p’hopolis had many properties, a bit like a wish-fulfilling gem in liquid form.
He knew using it would probably trigger some false notes in the mass belief organ of the P’hope, risking alerting him, but he had no choice, the damsel was already getting out of view, and he couldn’t spend days crawling down the shaky beanstalk.

“Who said we couldn’t grow wings” he said after a gulp of the precious potion. That was the magic formula he needed.

The smile returned as wings started to sprout out of his back, and without a second’s hesitation, he followed the sexy flying squirrel in mouldy cloak-wings.

The tunnel went on forever, forcing them to duck frequently and wriggle around in exiguous places. To make it worse, it wasn’t even fresh under, and the heat carried on as they went further inside. At times, Arona started to have anxiety flashes, as she was reminded of the labyrinthine tunnels of the dragons of old.

To give herself more heart, she put her efforts in continuing exchanging niceties and other manners of rude elaborate insults with the stranger, who surprisingly was a match to boot.

“Stop glumping, we’re almost there” he said to her, showing a final passage on a narrow ledge above crystal clear waters.

She was too exhausted to retort something witty, but took a mental note that he deserved one more of what she had.

When they emerged, the sun was almost set. The tunnel came out right at the rim of the floating land, and a tight network of ropeways were stretched under the tangled tentacles of the giant beanstalk, which kept the whole city and its neighbourhood afloat. More gymnastics in perspective she thought, but she was prepared for that.

“Don’t go too close, you’ll fall to your doom…” It was the first time the stranger’s voice hinted at some fear.

Arona smiled as elegantly as she could, despite being out of breath and red as a purpato. Lifting a limp Mandrake from the ground, she suddenly unwrapped her heavy cloak and lunged into the void below, the wind blowing in her strange mouldy wings.

“Follow me if you dare!” she shouted to the stranger, while struggling to navigate the downward spiral like an oversized flying squirrel.

If the sabulmantium was to be trusted, the beanstalk was a tangle of many paths, and the main and easiest accesses down its dangling twirly greenish tentacles were all outside of the city walls, in a zone where some lords managed to rule pockets of mass beliefs and a bunch of unattractive mongrel mobsters.

“Sounds potential adventure material” Mandrake had had the nerve to say when they’d packed.
“No it isn’t” Arona had said.
Then with more gusto “NO IT ISN’T” as though to convince all the sleepy tarts of the nymphouse below her rented room.

More doubts had sunken their claws in her tender heart, and a gulp of whatever astral cup didn’t seem in hindsight a worthy deal for all her troubles. Nonetheless, she was a woman of her word, which was probably why she wasn’t of many. Too much trouble being of all of them, whatever that meant.

“Honestly Mandrake, keeping you on track is worse than herding… dragons.”
She would have said sheep, but she wasn’t so rude yet. Mandrake could have taken that too badly, and he would again prove useful to distract the guards of the Southern Post. That’s where she decided to go, as with all the heat, it had to be the one less guarded.

Indeed, when she arrived, as planned, the gate was badly manned, and sleepy soldiers where reaching for the rare spots of shadow.
She decided to make a run for it. The soldiers didn’t look very fit. She started to go, thinking about zigzagging between the air bottles littering the plaza, when she felt a tug pulling her back by the cloak, almost sending her flying off her butt.

“FUCK!” she shouted as silently as she could. “You again! I thought I told you not to follow me! Mandrake, attack! Go for the balls!”

She was in a fury, but Mandrake licked his paw with a disgusted look on his face that meant “Hnhn, not going for that, sweetie. You’re on you own to herd that dragon, my lovely pooh.”

“Shhht!” the guy said with a bit smile.
“Don’t shush me, you… ninnyhammer!”
She didn’t know where the last word came from, but they sure felt good, although not quite rude enough.
“Oh, the lady is a pirate who knows her insults.” he answered with his cocky smile.
“Don’t mock me, you mooncalf”
“You were trying to sneak out, were you?”
“Why do you care, hobbledehoy?”
“The guards have aircon chain-mail and armours, see, look at those bottles on their backs… How could you beat them running with your heavy cloak?”
“Maybe Mr Snollygoster has a better suggestion?”
“Of course I have, if you care to follow me, Ms Mumpsimus.”

Arona was almost speechless. Not keen on following any stranger, she asked her guts, and they seemed to have a liking for the handsome fellow. It stirred old remembrance of going with the flow tactics, and when she did actually follow him, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he and Mandrake were already ahead in one of the alleys.

“Oh, no, let him have the keys to some secret tunnel, I won’t go for another sewer escape!”
As if her guardien angel has heard her secret prayer, it happened that the stranger had some strange stone key in his bag, opening a secret wall entrance.

“Oh.” was all she conceded to the stranger.
Nonplussed he offered her his hand “George” he presented himself still with the same broad smile.
She took his hand haughtily, and entered the vaulted tunnel, not telling him yet her name, in case she felt like choosing a sexy and mysterious code name. She could trust no one…

“Traitor” she hissed at Mandrake who was purringly looking at the strangers’ boots.