Earthly Paradise โ€“ Space of Love

SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE

”Anastasia, how have Russians managed to cope with such a huge influx of visitors? It must have been quite a challenge for them. I can just imagine living with your family in your kin’s domain (Space of Love) with a whole bunch of gawkers staring at you from the other side of the fence.”

“The tourists and foreigners coming to Russia for treatment, Vladimir, have been housed in the cities, in the flats vacated by Russians. They get produce from the domains delivered to them, but tourists are not allowed to go to the domains themselves. Only a few have managed to visit the places where the New Russians reside. Psychologists are constantly reminding the owners of the domains that whatever hospitality they show to visitors – especially visitors from what used to be considered highly developed countries โ€“ can lead to a nervous breakdown. The psychologists are correct. About forty percent of foreigners who did visit the domains returned home only to fall into a state of depression bordering on suicide.”

“How so? Why? You yourself said, Anastasia, that everything in the domains is perfect – the surrounding countryside, the food, the way family members help each other.”

“That is true, but for many foreign visitors what they saw turned out to be too perfect. Imagine if you can, Vladimir, an elderly person who has lived most of their life in a large city. Someone who has tried as hard as they could to earn as much as they could – just to be, so they thought, no worse off than others. In return for this money they received a roof over their heads, clothing to wear, a car to drive and food to eat. And here is this person sitting in their furnished flat with a car in the garage and food in the fridge.”

“Well, I am imagining it, and so far, everything seems normal. What next?”

‘”What next?’, Vladimir, is a question you should be able to answer yourself.”

“Next… Well, maybe this person will take a trip somewhere, maybe they’ll buy some new furniture or a new car.”

”And then?”

”And then? I haven’t the foggiest!”

”And then this person dies. He dies forever, or at least for millions of Earth years. His second self, his Higher Soul, cannot regain the earthly plane of being. It cannot because over the course of his earthly existence he created nothing good for the Earth. Each of us realises this intuitively, and that is why people are so terrified of death. When a majority of people have the same aspirations and a similar way of life, they have the impression that they can and should live only the way everybody else does.

“But here Man has seen a totally different way of life on the Earth. He has seen in fact an earthly Paradise – the Space of Love – which can be created by Man’s own hand in the Divine image, and this makes him look upon his own life as already gone by and spent in hell, and this Man dies in torment, and his sufferings last millions of years.”

“But why doesn’t everybody fall into this state of depression after seeing the Russians’ new way of life?”

“There are some who realise intuitively that even in their advanced years, if they put their weakening hand to creating a Space of Love on the Earth, the Creator will prolong their life. And after straightening up and with a smile brightening their face, they go and give a hand to younger people.”

“Still, Anastasia, it doesn’t seem right that people who come to Russia from so far away aren’t able to at least spend a little time walking down the streets of the new Russian communities and breathing the clean air.”

“Even the tourists who stay in the cities have the opportunity to feel the fresh breath of the Earth and drink health giving water. The cities are caressed by breezes which infuse them with cleanliness, ethers and pollen from the luxuriant greenery of the domains. And when they go on out-of-town excursions, tourists can observe these oases of Paradise – only from a respectful distance so as not to disturb the families living there. Take a look and see how it all happens.”

And once again I glimpsed another scene from the future. I saw the highway which runs between the city of Vladimir and another town named Suzdalโ€™ thirty kilometres away a highway I had travelled a number of times before. Earlier I had only caught the rare glimpse of tourist motorcoaches taking visitors to see Suzdal’s ancient cathedrals and monasteries. Most of the cars on the road had borne local licence plates. But now the highway was quite different. Beautiful motorcoaches rolled along a roadway that was twice the width of the old one. Electric vehicles, no doubt I couldn’t detect any exhaust gases or motor noise, only the quiet hum of the tyres. The coaches were filled with tourists of various nationalities. Many were observing their surroundings through field glasses.

About a kilometre from the main road, beyond a motley host of treetops, I could make out the roofs of detached houses. That was where the Russians’ family domains were situated, each surrounded by an evenly planted hedge, or ‘living fence’. On either side of the road, approximately two kilometres apart, were located nice-looking two-storey buildings housing shops and dining salons. Each of these was fronted by a small asphalt lot where an electric vehicle could park if there was a space free. The electric motorcoaches spewed forth a stream of tourists, who were impatient to taste the local delicacies on the spot or to buy some to take home.

All the shops and cafes sold food products grown in the domains. They also had hand-made Russian shirts, towels, woodcarvings and many other things made by skilled craftspeople. Anastasia explained that visitors were eager to buy these handicrafts because they knew that a shirt embroidered by the kind hands of a happy woman is immensely more valuable than something off a mechanised conveyor belt.

If you looked down from above at what was behind the strip of forest visible from the highway; you would be able to glimpse shady allees and domains outlined by living fences. The strip of forest surrounded a community containing about ninety family estates. About a kilometre distant, across open fields, was another community surrounded by a strip of forest, and so on for the next thirty kilometres or so.

Even though they were the same size, the domain plots were far from uniform in appearance. Some were dominated by orchard trees, others featured wild-growing trees – slender pines, loosely spreading cedars, oaks and birches.

Each domain invariably had a pond or a swimming pool. The houses, surrounded by flower beds, were also quite different from one another – some were large two-storey detached houses, others were smaller bungalows. They had been built in various styles – both flat and sloping roofs were to be seen. Some of the little houses were all white, resembling the huts found in Ukrainian villages. where large groups of people can gather to enjoy traditional Russian meals.

I saw no motorcars on the lanes running between the domains. Nor, for that matter, could I detect any special activity or work being done in the domains themselves. I had the impression that all this extraordinary beauty was the creation of Someone on high, and that all people needed to do was to delight in His creation.

In the middle of each community there were beautiful large two-storey structures. Around them scurried a host of active children at play. That meant that schools or clubs had been built in the centre of the settlements.

“You see there, Anastasia, in the centre of the comunity; where there’s a school or a club, there’s some kind of visible life, but in the domains themselves it looks pretty much like Dullsville. If their owners have managed to arrange the plantings so that there is no need to fertilise or to battle with pests and weeds, what is there left for them to do? In any case, I think that Man actually finds greater joy in intensive labour, creativity and inventiveness, but there’s none of that here.”

“Vladimir, right here in these splendid domains people are involved with the very things you mention, and their deeds are meaningful. It demands a significantly higher level of intelligence, mindfulness and inspiration than the work of artists and inventors in the world you are accustomed to.”

“But if they are all artists and inventors, then where are the results of their work?”

“Vladimir, do you consider an artist someone who takes brush in hand and paints a beautiful landscape on a sheet of canvas?”

“Of course, I do. People will look at his picture and, if they like it, they will either buy it or put it on display in an art gallery.”

“Then why would you not consider as an artist someone who has taken, instead of a canvas, a hectare of land, and used it to create an equally beautiful or even a more beautiful landscape? After all, in order to create a beautiful landscape out of living materials, the creator needs more than artistic imagination and taste – he also needs a knowledge of the properties of a great many living materials. In both instances it is the task of what has been created to call forth positive emotions in the viewer, and to delight the eye.

“But in contrast to a picture painted on canvas, a living picture has a variety of functions besides. It cleanses the air, it produces beneficial ethers for Man and feeds his body. A living picture changes the nuances of its colours, and it can be constantly perfected. It is connected to the Universe by invisible threads. It is incomparably more meaningful than something painted on canvas, and so the artist who creates it will be that much the greater.”

“Yes, of course, I really can’t disagree with that. But tell me, why do you consider the owners of these domains to be inventors and scientists to boot? Do they have any relation to science at all?”

“They have a relation to science too.”

“What kind of relation, for example?”

“For example, do you, Vladimir, not consider as a scientist someone who is involved in plant selection and genetic engineering?”

“Of course. Everybody thinks of them as scientists, they work in scientific research institutes. They come up with new varieties of fruits and vegetables, and other plants as well.”

“Yes, of course, they come up with these, but what is important is the result of their work, its significance for humanity.”

“Well, the result is that varieties of vegetables and potatoes are brought forth that are frost-resistant and that will not be eaten by the Colorado beetle. In highly developed countries they have managed to grow a living being from a simple cell. Now they are working on cultivating various organs for transplanting into patients – kidneys, for example.”

“Yes, that is true. But have you not wondered, Vladimir, why in these highly developed countries there are also appearing more and more types of diseases? Why is it that these same countries have the highest cancer rates of all? Why do they need an increasing number of drugs for treatment? Why do an ever-increasing number of people suffer from infertility?”

“Well, why?”

“Because many of those you call scientists are not rational beings at all. Their human essence is paralysed, and the forces of destruction work through their merely external human form.

“Think about it, Vladimir: these so-called scientists have begun to fundamentally change the plants existing in Nature, thereby also changing the fruits they bring forth. They have begun changing them without first determining what purpose these fruits have. After all, in Nature, as in the Universe, everything is so closely interconnected.

“Let us take your car, for example. Suppose a mechanic were to remove or alter some part – a filter, let us say โ€“ the car might go for a while, but what would soon happen?”

“The fuel-feed system would go out of whack, and the motor would choke.”

“In other words, every part of a motorcar has its function, and before touching a part, it is necessary to determine its function.”

“Of course! You don’t have to be a mechanic to see that.”

“But Nature, after all, is also a perfect mechanism, and nobody has yet fully fathomed it. Every part of this great living mechanism has its purpose and is closely interconnected with the whole structure of the Universe. A change in properties or the removal of a single part inevitably affects the work of the whole mechanism of Nature.

“Nature has many protective devices. First, it will signal an impermissible action. If that does not work, Nature will be obliged to destroy the ‘mechanic’ who fails in his calling. Man uses the fruits of Nature for food, and if he begins to feed himself with mutant fruits, he will be gradually transformed into a mutant himself. Such an adulteration is inevitable, given the consumption of adulterated produce.

“This is already coming about. Man is already experiencing a weakening of his immune system, his mind and feelings. He is beginning to lose the abilities unique to him alone and is being transformed into an easily manipulable bio-robot. He is losing his independence. The appearance of new diseases only confirms this – it is a sign that Man has tried undertaking an impermissible action.โ€

“Well, let’s say you’re right, Anastasia. I myself don’t think much of these hybrid plants. There was a lot of hoopla about them at first, but now quite a few national governments, including our own, have started mandating special labelling of genetically modified produce sold in stores. And many people try to avoid buying these mutant products. But they say there’s no way to avoid them altogether, at least for the time being – there’s too many of them. There’s not enough real produce, and it’s so much more expensive.”

“There, you see, that is because the forces of destruction have managed to lure humanity into a state of economic dependency. They have managed to convince Man that if he does not consume their products, he will die of starvation. But that is not true, Vladimir. Just the opposite: Man will die if he does eat them.”

“Maybe, Anastasia, but not everyone will die. Many already know about this and won’t eat mutant products.”

“How do you, for example, Vladimir, manage to tell the difference?”

“I don’t eat imported vegetables, for one thing. What local residents sell at the markets from their own household plots is a lot tastier.”

โ€œAnd where do they get their seeds?”

“What do you mean, where do they get them? They buy them. There’s a lot of firms dealing in seeds now: They sell them in pretty coloured packaging.”

“So, does that mean that people buy seeds according to the information on the package, without knowing for absolute certain how accurate that information is?”

“You mean to say that even the seeds they buy may be mutant?”

“Yes. For example, on the Earth today there are only nine apple trees left bringing forth original fruit. The apple is one of the most healthful and delicious of all God’s creations for Man. But it was one of the first to be subjected to genetic manipulation. Even the Old Testament warns us against grafting. But people went ahead stubbornly and did it, and as a result the apples disappeared. What you now find in orchards or grocery stores does not correspond to the Divine fruit. Those that violate and destroy the original purity of God’s creation you call scientists. But what can we call those who are restoring the functioning of all the parts of Nature’s mechanism?”

“They’re scientists too, but more literate, no doubt, more knowledgeable.”

โ€œThe Russian families living in the domains which you see here are the same ones who are restoring that which was ruined before.”

“And where did they acquire greater knowledge than the geneticists and the biologists involved in genetic selection?”

“This knowledge has existed in every Man right from the beginning. The goal, thought and conscious awareness of their purpose afford each of these the opportunity to reveal itself”

“Wow! So, it turns out that the people living in the domains are both artists and scientists. Who then are we – I mean, the people living on the planet today?”

“Everyone can supply their own definition if they manage to free their thought for at least nine days.”

 

DO WE HAVE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT?

“What do you mean to free their thought? Everybody has freedom of thought.”

“In the context of your technocratic society, Vladimir, Man’s thought is enslaved by the limits and conventions of this world. In fact, the technocratic world can only exist when the freedom of Man’s thought is nullified and the energy of his thought is absorbed by it.”

“Something’s not clear to me here. Every Man over his lifetime can do a lot of thinking about a lot of different things. There are limits on freedom of speech, for example. There are countries in which there is greater freedom of expression,
in other countries less, but everyone is free to think whatever they wish.”

“That is an illusion, Vladitnir. The majority of people are compelled to think about one and the same thing their whole lives. This is easier to see if you take the topics a typical Man of your world thinks about and analyse them in terms of distinct time segments, adding up the time he spends thinking about each particular subject. By this simple method you can determine the prevailing thought in contemporary human society.”

“Interesting. Let’s try determining this prevailing thought together, you and I.”

“Very well. Then tell me, what would you consider Man’s average life expectancy today?”

“Is that important?”

“Not all that important, given the unifornmity of Man’s thinking, but we need some sort of figure for our subsequent calculations.”

“Okay. In our time let’s say a Man lives eighty years.”

“So, a Man is born. Or, to put it more accurately; he has attained the material plane of his being.”

“Let’s just say he is born it’s easier to understand.”

”All right. Even as an infant he is looking at the world, which is waiting for him to get to know it. Clothing, housing and food are provided for him by his parents. But the parents also attempt, either consciously or subconsciously, through their behaviour, to impart to him their thoughts and the way they see the world around them. The visible process of getting to know what life is all about lasts approximately eighteen years, and over the whole course of these years the technocratic world attempts to impress the young Man’s thought with its own importance. Then, over the remaining sixty-two years of his life, let us assume that Man himself can control the tendencies of his own thought.”

“Indeed, he can. But you were saying there’s something trying to enslave his thought.”

“Yes, I did say that. So, let us try and calculate how much time he is free to think for himself?โ€

“Okay, let’s.”

“For a certain number of hours each day Man sleeps or rests. How many hours a day does he spend on sleep?”

“Eight, as a rule.”

“We took 62 years of Man’s life as a basis. If you multiply that by eight hours per day, taking leap years into account, you find that Man sleeps for 587,928 hours of his life. Thus, sleeping 8 hours a day equates to 22 years of constant sleep. Now we subtract these 22 years from the 62 years of his life and we have 40 years when he is awake.

“Now, at some point during their waking hours most people are involved with the preparation of food. How much time do you think Man spends on cooking and eating food?”

“It happens that women generally do the cooking, while men are obliged to spend more tin1e earning the money to pay for groceries.”

”And how many hours would you say, Vladimir, go into the preparation and consumption of food every day?”

“Well, if you take into account the time spent on buying groceries, preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner, that’s probably about three hours – on a weekday, that is. Only not everyone in the family is involved in the cooking. The rest of us… well, we eat, and maybe help do the grocery shopping, or wash the dishes, so that I’d say about two and a half hours, on average.”

“In fact, it is more, but let us take your figure, two-and-a half hours per day. Multiply that by the number of days a Man lives and it comes to 61,242.5 hours, or 25,517 days, or 7 years. Subtract this number from the 40 and there are 33 left.

“Now, in order to be able to obtain food, clothing and housing, a Man dwelling in the technocratic world is obliged to perform one of the functions essential to this world namely, work. And I should like to draw your attention, Vladimir, to this fact: Man is obliged to work or engage in some business not because he really likes it but for the sake of the technocratic world itself, otherwise Man will be deprived of what is vitally important to him. How much time do most people spend each day on work?”

“In our country it’s eight hours, with another two hours or so spent getting to and from work, but every week they get a couple of days off”

“So now try to calculate how many equivalent years of his life does a Man spend on work which is rarely satisfying?”

“It would take me quite a while to figure out without a calculator – you tell me.”

”All told, for the thirty years of so-called work activity he spends ten years constantly working for someone – or, rather, for the technocratic world. And now from those 33 years of life we have to subtract another 1o, leaving us 23.

“Now, what else does a Man do every day over the course of his life?”

“He watches TV”

“For how many hours a day?”

“No less than three.”

“These three hours amount to 8 years of constant sitting in front of a television screen. If we take then1 away from the 23 remaining, we are left with 15. But even this time is not free for activities native to Man alone. Man’s thought is subject to inertia. It cannot take a sudden switch from one thing to another. Some time is spent processing and making sense of information received. All told, the average Man spends only 15 to 20 minutes of his life reflecting on the mystery of creation. Some do not think about it at all, while others spend years contemplating it. Anyone can figure it out if he looks back over the years of his life. Each individual is unique โ€“ he is more important than all the galaxies taken together, for he is capable of creating them. But each Man is a particle of the human commonwealth, which may be regarded in its entirety as a single organism, a single essence. And once humanity has fallen into the trap of technocratic dependence, this great essence of the Universe becomes closed within itself, it loses genuine freedom and becomes dependent, at the same time activating the mechanism of self-destruction.

”Another way of life, quite distinct from your world’s everyday norm, is lived by people in the communities of the future. Their thought is both free and humane- it has merged into a single aspiration, and is leading humanity out of its dead end. The galaxies quiver in joyful anticipation when they see the human dream merging into a single whole. Creation will soon witness a new birth and a new co-creation. Their human thought will materialise a beautiful new planet.”

“Wow! How grandiloquently you describe these community dwellers! But outwardly they’re just ordinary people.”

“Even their outward appearance is distinctive. It is imbued with the radiance of great energy. Look more closely – here come a grandmother and her grandson riding along …”

 

EQUESTRIENNE FROM THE FUTURE

I saw a wagon emerging from the settlement, or rather a carriage with a folding top, drawn by a sorrel mare. On the carriage’s plush seat sat an elderly woman, with baskets of apples and vegetables at her feet. Up in front a shirtless boy about seven years old held the reins, but did not appear to be controlling the horse. No doubt they had been along this route many times before and the horse was simply trotting leisurely along a familiar route.

The boy turned to the elderly woman and said something to her. His grandmother smiled and began to sing. The boy started singing along with her, picking up on the refrain. As for the tourists in their electric motorcoach passing by on the parallel highway about a kilometre distant, there was no way they could catch the sound of their song.

Practically the whole coach had their field glasses trained on the carriage and its passengers. They watched the spectacle unfold with bated breath, as though they had seen a miracle or an interplanetary alien, and again the thought came to me that there was something not quite right here: people had come from such a long ways away and couldn’t even carry on a normal conversation with the local residents, but were limited to observing them from a distance. And the two occupants of the carriage weren’t even looking their way.

One of the tourist coaches slowed clown to keep pace with the horse’s trot. The coach was filled with children visiting from abroad, excitedly waving their hands at the little boy and his grandmother riding in the handsome carriage, but not once was there even a glance in return.

All at once a young equestrienne emerged from one of the gates of the settlement, which were beautifully enwreathed with living vegetation. Her chestnut-coloured racehorse maintained a heated gallop in a bid to catch up to the carriage and was soon prancing daintily alongside. The elderly woman smiled, listening as the young equestrienne spoke to her.

Even though the boy may not have been too happy at having their duet interrupted, his voice could not help but betray an inner joy as he said:

“Oh, Mamochka, you’re a regular jumping jack! You can’t stay still for a moment!”

The young woman laughed, reached into her canvas saddle bag and took out a patty handing it to the little boy. He took a bite of it and then offered it to the elderly woman, saying:

“Here you are, Granny, try it it’s still warm!”

The boy gave a tug on the reins and stopped the carriage. He leant down and with both hands picked up a basket of yummy-looking apples. He held it out to the woman rider in the direction of the touring coach with the visiting children on board.

Grasping the heavy basket of apples easily with one hand, with the other hand she gave her prancing steed a pat on its neck, and galloped off toward the children’s motorcoach. Several other tourist coaches in the meantime had pulled up beside it, all eyes fixed on the young woman rider galloping toward them over the fields clutching the basket of apples with one hand.

Dashing up to the children who had now spewed forth out of the coach, she reined in her steed, and without leaving the saddle, deftly bent down and placed the apple basket on the ground in front of the excited children.

After managing to give a dark-haired little boy a pat on the head, she waved a greeting to all and headed off on her steed right down the middle of the dual motorway. The driver of the children’s coach was talking on his two-way radio:

“She’s galloping rig.ht down the n1edian strip! She’s marvellous!”

Many of the touring coaches along the motorway pulled over to the side and stopped. People quickly got out and spread themselves along the roadside, watching the beautiful young equestrienne galloping along at full speed. No shouts, but rather whispers of excitement emanated from many people’s lips. And here was really something to be excited about. Sparks flying from his hooves, the steed flew along unhindered in his heated gallop. His rider carried no whip in her hand, or even a switch, yet the steed kept quickening his step, his hooves barely touching the asphalt, his mane streaming from the brisk headwind. No doubt he was extremely proud of his rider and wanted to prove worthy of this beautiful woman on his back.

Indeed, she was exceptionally beautiful in appearance. Of course, one could get excited about her perfect facial contours, her light-brown braid and thick eyelashes. Of course, beneath her white hand-embroidered blouse and flowered skirt with white camomiles one could easily picture a shapely supple waist on this girl with such a magnificent figure, whose smooth, feminine lines seemed to frame some sort of irrepressible energy. The blush playing on her cheeks gave but a glimpse of the majesty and boundless possibilities of this unfathomable energy. The young equestrienne’s unusually healthy-looking appearance (she looked like a girl in her late teens!) quite distinguished her from that of the people standing by the side of the road. She sat upright on her frisky steed with not a trace of tension in her body. She wasn’t holding on to the pommel of her saddle, or even the reins. And her legs were thrown over one side of the horse’s rump without a stirrup on either foot.

As she rode along with her eyelids lowered, she gracefully wove her wind-tossed hair into a tight braid. And she had only to raise her eyelids to inflame one of the crowd of people with some kind of invisible but captivating fire. Whoever caught her gaze felt himself straighten up inside and stand tall.

It seemed that these people could feel the light and energy emanating from the equestrienne and were trying to let it at least partially fill their being. She understood their desire, and generously shared what she had, galloping on and just being beautiful.

All of a sudden, an excited Italian man ran out across the motorway right in front of the oncoming steed. He waved his arms wildly to each side, crying out in excitement: Russia! I love you, Russia! The young rider was completely unmoved by her steed rearing up on its hind legs and prancing on the spot. With one hand simply holding on to the pommel of her saddle, she used the other to pluck a flower of the garland adorning her hair and toss it down to the Italian. Catching his gift, he pressed it tenderly to his chest like a valuable treasure, constantly repeating: Mamma mia! Mamma mia!

But the beautiful equestrienne was no longer paying attention to the impetuous Italian. She had only to touch the reins and the horse broke into a lightly prancing walk and headed over to the people standing on the roadside. As the crowd parted, the young equestrienne gave a sprightly leap down from her steed, coming face to face with a woman of European appearance who was holding a baby girl fast asleep in her arms.

The mother was slouching a little, her face was pale and eyes fatigued, and she seemed to have a hard time holding her baby still without waking her. The equestrienne gave the woman a big smile, and the two mothers’ glances met.

It was not difficult to notice the difference in the two women’s mental states. The mother with the baby had a depressed look, which gave her the appearance of a fading flower in comparison with the young woman who had just approached her – a woman whose countenance suggested an irrepressible explosion of blossoms from thousands of gardens.

The two women looked each other in the eye without a word between them. And then all at once, as though startled by a new conscious awareness of something, the woman holding the sleeping baby straightened up, and her face broke into a broad smile. With a graceful, very feminine movement of her hands, the Russian woman took the beautiful garland from her own head and placed it on the head of the mother holding the baby; though they still didn’t say a single word to each other.

Once more the beautiful equestrienne deftly mounted her steed which had been standing meekly at her side and headed off. For some reason the people all gave her a round of applause. The now-smiling slender woman, whose baby daughter had by this time awakened with a smile of her own on her little face, kept watching as the figure of her new-found friend receded into the distance. As for the impetuous Italian, he was running after her holding an expensive watch he had taken off his wrist, calling out to her: A souvenir, mamma mia! But by this time the beautiful rider was already far away.

The adventure some racehorse turned off the highway in front of a patio decked out with long tables, where another group of tourists was sitting, drinking kvass (a fermented beverage made from rye, barley or other natural products) and berry drinks. They were also sampling other delicacies waiters kept bringing to them out of a building replete with beautiful Russian carvings.

Another building was in the finishing stages of construction next door. Two people were attaching to one of the windows of the new building – probably a shop or dining salon – a beautiful carved wooden nalichnik. Upon hearing the hoofbeats, one of the men turned in the direction of the approaching rider, said something to his fellow-worker and jumped down from the scaffolding. Reining in her horse, the impetuous equestrienne sprang down to the ground and, quickly unfastening her canvas bag from the saddle, ran over to the man and gently handed it to him.

“Pattyโ€ฆ With apple filling, just the way you like them. They’re still warm.”

“You’re my little jumping jack, Ekaterinka,” the man said tenderly. Whereupon he reached into the bag, took out a patty and bit into it. His face writhed with pleasure.

The tourists sitting at the tables stopped their eating and drinking, admiring the young lovers. There stood the pair face to face – the man working on the building and the beautiful young equestrienne just dismounted from her fiery steed as though they were not already married with children, but a courting couple fervently in love. And here was this beautiful woman, who had just ridden fifteen kilometres, who seemed so invincible and as free as the wind under the excited gaze of the tourists, calmly standing in front of her beloved, first looking him in the eye, then lowering her eyelids in embarrassment. All at once the man stopped eating and said:

“Ekaterinushka, look, a wet spot has broken out on your blouse – that means it’s time to feed Vanechka.”

She covered the little wet spot on her milk-filled breast with the palm of her hand and answered, somewhat embarrassed: “I’ll manage it. He’s still sleeping. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Better hurry. I’ll be hon1e soon, too. We’re just finishing up here. Do you like what we’ve done?”

She took a look at the windows framed by the decorative carved nalicbniks.

“Yes. Very much. But there’s something else I wanted to tell you.”

“Go on.”

She came up close to her husband and stood on tiptoe as if to whisper something in his ear. He leaned over to listen, but she just gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. Then, without even turning around, she sprang into the saddle of her steed standing alongside her, her happy trilling laughter mingling with the hoofbeats. Then it was off to home she galloped this time not along the asphalt motorway; but across the grasses of the open fields. As before, the tourists could not take their eyes off her so long as she remained in sight.

What was so special about this young woman – a mother with two young children – riding across the open fields on her adventuresome steed? Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, one could feel her overflowing energy. Yes, she was kind. But why couldn’t anyone take their eyes off her as she rode away?

Perhaps it was more than just a woman riding a horse across a field. Perhaps it was Happiness incarnate hurrying home to feed an infant and later welcome her beloved husband? And people couldn’t help but admire Happiness hurrying back to her home.

 

Excerpt from the book โ€œWho Are We?โ€ by Vladimir Megre