TALES FROM THE CARIBBEAN

After Dave and the monk sold the freshly caught fish and lobsters, the sun dropped behind the horizon and they headed for the boat shack. When the last ferryboat disappeared, so too did the police in their white uniforms, and once they had departed, scary looking night people with massive dreadlocks and fierce dark eyes replaced them. The monk was standing off at a distance, miffed because Dave hadn’t shared the money from their catch of the day, but suddenly he felt uneasy. He hurried to catch up with Dave so he wasn’t alone. A cast of characters was gathered at the boat shack for another fish boil being prepared by Big Jessie and Dan. Dan was busy tending the fire and preparing the fruit while Jessie entertained; he’s the life of the party, no matter if he’s in the mountains of eastern Kentucky or relaxing in the Caribbean, and although he’s a moneyed person, he never speaks about it; he’s humble to a fault.

Two of the guests were sisters who own and live aboard “Rosa’s Star,” an ocean-going yawl. Mona and Catrina Analusleiscu were born Romanian gypsies but their parents moved to Sweden after Stalin’s troops invaded Bucharest. Just before it was time for the sisters to enter middle school, unknown assailants murdered their parents, and they were forced to move to Amsterdam where they lived with their grandmother Rosa, a Gypsy Queen who made her fortune by telling the fortunes of European royalty. Rosa taught her granddaughters the ways of the ancient mystics, while Grandfather Wolf, Rosa’s sea-faring significant other, taught the girls about sailing and boat handling; the two girls enjoyed a rather peaceful and idyllic life during their teenage years.

Telling fortunes was a team effort for the Analusleiscu sisters: Mona told the client about his or her past by looking into a crystal ball and then Catrina read the Tarot cards and spoke about the client’s future. Finally the sisters worked together to construct, in great detail, an astrological chart for their clients. Because of the sister’s ability to know and see personal events in people’s lives, it caused even those who were normally non-believers and skeptics to fear them. The previous owner of Rosa’s Star had suddenly abandoned his yawl and hurriedly left the island after Mona told him very specific things about his sordid past that included the unsolved murder of his former Wall Street partner.

As the party progressed a full moon was rising, the pungent smell of fresh hand-rolled cigars filled the night air, and the potent island rum loosened tongues; one of the most famous products of the island of St. Croix. A lighted lantern was placed at the center of the circle and Dave (everybody called him Shark Boy) asked Mona and Catrina to tell the hungry Monk’s fortune. Brother Lamb didn’t believe in fortune telling, but finally said to himself, “Oh well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

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Shark Boy placed a three-legged stool in front of Mona as she extracted her crystal ball from a large canvas handbag and placed it on the stool. She began by telling the monk about his sad past and about his poor mother who could no longer feed her hungry son and was forced to give him to a monastery. The monks fed him table scraps, used him for a slave, made him sleep with the goats, and frequently physically and sexually abused him. Brother Lamb sat in stunned silence during Mona’s reading, but when she came to the part about him watching a beautiful young girl disrobe at a waterfall, he vehemently protested.

“Wait a minute,” protested Brother Lamb. “Who told you that? That’s not what happened. I was quietly meditating near the waterfall when the governor’s granddaughter by accident didn’t see me, and began disrobing.”

“Enough,” said Mona, as Catrina unrolled a round leather tapestry with mysterious symbols on it and began turning the Tarot cards.

“I see,” said Catrina, “that your future has in it a whitewashed building, and you’re surrounded by many goats and children.”

“Whoa!” exclaimed the monk, “I’ve already taken sacred vows of celibacy.”

“And,” Catrina went on, ignoring him, “there’s more, much more. We took the liberty of obtaining the place and date of your birth from the custom’s house, and we have constructed your star chart.”

“We know that you believe that the past fourteen years or so of your life has been spent in what seemed like failure and frustration. But the planet Saturn, as it circles the sun in its orbit, goes through twenty-eight year cycles.Your Saturn had to move through a seven-year-long Obscure Sector, and then spend seven more years in the Sector of New Beginning. But that will be coming to an end very soon, as your Saturn enters its seven-year-long Rising Sector, moving in turn through the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Houses. That will be the harvest time, the period when the general public will be able to see you reaping the fruits of all you have been quietly working on, often without even fully realizing it, for the past seven years in particular.”

“To help you along, at the same time, Jupiter — which governs opportunity — will be well-aspected as it moves into your Second House, the house of wealth and property. And Mars — which governs your ability to be assertive and aggressive — will also be well-aspected as it moves into your Eighth House, which was traditionally called the House of Death, but in fact governs your relationship to other people’s money and possessions. You will be given a great opportunity, and you will have the strength and courage and audacity to grasp it.”

“Contrary to what the negativistic doctrines and dogmas of your restrictive religious upbringing taught you, neither money nor sex are bad in and of themselves, and religious vows made in blind ignorance do not gain you grace. At the material level, you’re going to have a very good seven years coming up, and if you have also reached a high enough evolved spiritual state to deal with your new-found wealth, it will be a time of great blessing for you, and you will have another seven years after that which will also be good ones, when you will be able to quietly work on yourself and begin moving onto an even more evolved spiritual level. But beware: you must always keep your continuing spiritual development as your first responsibility, or money and material success will make your life worse, not better.” To be continued.