The Ethereal Visitor

By Fernando Davalos

The morning was very slow in the second day of May in which I found myself alone in the Regina bookstore trying to find a way to attract more visitors to increase our sales. It disappointed me a little to see that most of the people leaving the clothing store next to our place after buying there would normally come by to visit our place and after browsing around our books and showing genuine interest to acquire them ended up not buying anything since they had no more money left. Maybe next payday, they would say.

I was engaged in these reflections when even with my eyes fixed in the recently arrived book list I had in the desk, I felt a presence that I can only imperfectly describe as a mixture of an extremely powerful but loving and compassionate energy, filling abruptly the whole space. This new magnetic and pleasant vibration forced me to turn around immediately towards my right where I discovered a young woman with a beautiful face, pleasant and slender figure and dressed with a purple cotton garment that was paying special attention to some books of Conny Méndez in one of the shelves of the wall.

Her bearing was of great nobility and I would almost say royal and natural. There was nothing in that woman that could inspire the minimum fear but instead a deep respect and a melancholic longing.

Attracted by everything that transpired from this beautiful being, I approached her to offer some help and I surprised myself by almost making a reverence before its presence and stopping a meter of where she was with my hands united behind my waist.

She turned to look at me with an enormous smile and asked for the price of one of the books she was interested in.

I confess that I lost all composure when I heard the sound of her voice, because it was something beyond description, like a melodious but simultaneously thunderous murmur.

“How much is this book?” she inquired, again looking directly into my eyes with enormous naturalness

In the best way I could, and only after brief moments, I recovered my composure and with great effort and an enormous sacrifice, I took my glance away of those powerful eyes that revealed an immeasurable purity and an immaculate innocence and provided the information she requested.

Sending a last look to the book at issue, she carefully returned it to the shelf. Immediately afterwards, and without any warning, she nailed her powerful and compassionate eyes into mine again and for some instants that seemed to suspend the passage of time, she added:

“Thank you very much, I’ll see you later.”

Without saying more, she left the bookstore, smiling.

The brief but transcendental encounter had finished. I remained standing in the same spot without moving absolutely for several minutes, trying to assimilate the extraordinary experience with all my being and in a never before reached state of authentic inner silence. Throughout my soul circulated a comforting peace and in those precious minutes, no noise of the street or person existed in my immediate surroundings.

The powerful spiritual vibration of the strange visitor caused that at least for some brief moments I was fully immersed in the spiritual dimension and somehow also in the material world.

Little by little, that indescribable state of awareness started to dissipate to give way to the understanding that I just had a brief encounter with a woman of a high spirituality and a superior consciousness that had shown me through the power of the glance, the unspeakable beauty of the spirit that animates us all, as if wanting to attest the importance that any spiritual work— no matter how modest— has when its being done in favor of the awakening of our society.

When I shared my fortunate encounter with my wife, she was glad to know about the fortuitous gift and message of encouragement that the visit of this mysterious spiritual woman represented for our work and modest efforts, which did not prevent her from laughing at my expense because she said that far from being in this world, I acted and walked some days like somebody living in a far and distant land.