A Pachelbel Canon Night

When I was writing my first book, the world around me was asleep, and I was awake in the wonder of the light. Every guidance was in the nuance of the living form. I had a house then and not much else, but I had a room for which to grow and live, and everything else was a beam of light to see by. I lived in prayer, in meditation, and there was no radical transformation. It was more of a sifting and taking it all in.

Music was something I had always taken to heart and used to listen to every day, but for years there was nothing to listen on. I had pawned my CDs once upon a time, and the CD player broke like everything electronic did that I had owned. But I digress...so I didn't have a computer then either. The laptop I had gotten at the pawn shop broke too.

I remember walking to the library, and it was the start of winter. I had my autumn jacket on. It was a twenty-five minute walk to a dismal corner of the city that was suffering from business closures everywhere, a sign of the times. The sentinels of minds pocketed their own wonder on the shelves inside the big building, and the very large windows lit up like an atmosphere of their own beckoned me. The air was cold, and I kept the USB in my pocket warm with my hands.

People are like miracles of their own, and the library was always filled with miracles. Resounding efforts filled the bookshelves, and like gravitating orbits people browsed and chose their books to read. I was always a little dismayed at the array. So many feelings to read around the people, like each had their own corner of dust billowing, like Pigpen on the Peanuts cartoon. At least, that's how it was then to read them. I would learn much later that reading feelings is a waste of time unless it's someone that you want to love. Otherwise, it gave no answers to any query.

Then there were the concentrated forces around the computer area, all lined up or seated circularly in a hub. The computers were free to use. One never knew how many people were in queue so far how long you could use one was in question. Sometimes an hour, sometimes four hours, once only for twenty minutes. I was in final edits and had already researched the publishers I would send to. I had written the whole first book at that public library. Hastening on the edge of excitement, there I sat concentrating.

Then I felt it. A pull to mind like a magnet (this is not necessarily a good thing in a spiritual reading, nor was I trying to read psychically). I looked away from the computer screen to gaze around the room. Seconds later, a man entered the library. Seconds after he did, a local psychic also walked in. I only knew her because she had once been a client of mine looking for a job. The man went to the terminal where the machine printed a ticket with the login numbers. Then he sat next to me and entered the number so the computer would log him on. He was stocky, had a full face, was bald with a patch of hair on top of his head, and his close-set eyes were black as night. He turned and stared me in the eye intently, and I read his mind as easily as breathing, "Sam says hello," then, "You'll be rich one day." This left me a little befuddled. I knew several Samanthas, none of whom I had seen in years. How did he know that? Why would I read that? Then he proceeded to plug his laptop into the library computer. Why was he doing that?

Then I read his soul. The living form is always in the centre of a protected space in the physical. There was no harm in the library itself or the people around. His soul body was his head atop the form of a serpent. What goes there, I did not want an answer to. One does not need to be religious to know that's bad. He was either evil or had done dark arts - same thing. With that awareness, I centred, said a prayer and the moment closed. Normally, his temperament would follow in the reading, but I skipped that part and refocused on my work in front of me. Editing and details are not my thing. I took a break and tried my email instead as a distraction, but couldn't log in. I wasn't on social media back then. It was a vague mystery, and I didn't think it necessary to be on it, but there was a writers chat that I would read occasionally on a different forum, and I was not able to log on to that either to reply to a comment. Frustrated, I tried YouTube and was also unsuccessful. As sensitive as I was at the time, I stifled my tears.

I looked around the room as I thought about the long walk home. A middle-aged man at the table on the other side of the computer area caught my eye and blinked a couple of times. Another man a few tables away also looked at me and winked a couple times, and I stared back at him blankly. A man with an ashen face, and I had never seen an ashen face before, but it is a light gray and very pale, almost translucent, stared hard at the screen in front of him, visibly sweating. Unless my mind should wander, I looked back at my screen in a sort of exasperation. Looking for a train of thought to continue my puzzle of edits, instead, I began doodling. Good ol' pencil and paper changed the thread. Like I'm a sewing machine matching garments like wits and trying to make a patchwork something or other, then I see the silver lining and remember people don't matter in the making of an imaginary quilt, the understanding of what matches does. The man next to me was still there. Then I glanced down at headphones, and with a sense of relief, I put them on. Instead of logging into YouTube I searched classical music because, really, it's my favourite, at least Mozart is, and there was a song called Pachelbel Canon in D Major with the wrong picture to it, and I clicked on it.

I don't know if music has the same effect on you, its engulfing and coasts my spirit. It's like I am the ocean, and it is the air, and without it, I cannot breathe. The wet molecules rise lakes within my soul to a resounding crescendo. Like a rapturous affair when there is only want, motion and waves. As soon as I listened to the song, I was transported out of my body. It was like I was lifted to highest treetops, like my toes had wings, like I could see the planet from miles above it. I had never heard Pachelbel's Canon before. I closed my eyes in reverence. I was so filled with peace, I had tears in my eyes at the beauty of the music. The man next to me stood and left as quickly as he had walked in.

Soon after, I did the long walk home in the cold at record speed. Barely aware of my own footsteps, the walk of a soul.

Who knew that Johann Pachelbel seated at his desk writing his Canon in the 1680 -1700, that three hundred years in the future, his song would save a soul. Maybe, it was guided by Angels for all the world to hear.

Memory from 2011 for insert, for my Memoir: The World Around Me

Pachelbel Canon in D Major TSO Christmas Version

Pachelbel Canon in D Major Original Version (with correct photo of Pachelbel)

Lisa Lachapelle's Books

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