✦ Before the Beach, Before the Body

Before the oranges, before the sand, before the six minutes missing on the shore of Puerto Rico—there was another threshold.

I remember standing outside of earth’s density, reluctant to enter. I knew what awaited: the nets, the programs, the trauma-fields. I did not want the heaviness of a human body. I resisted.

But three escorts came.

• ElShara — she carried the light of reassurance. She held the map of what would one day be retrieved.
• Drek Tharen — blunt, unflinching, he reminded me that refusal was not neutral: “If not you, then who holds the line?”
• Ono O — quiet strength, the anchor. He did not argue—he stood, radiating presence, until I felt the pull of belonging.

Together, they guided me through the crossing.

I entered, but reluctantly—knowing I would be placed in a family net, knowing my reel would be tested, knowing I might forget. My Oversoul said only this: “The forgetting will not be forever. The anchors will be left for you. You will find them.”

One of those anchors was the orange peel on the beach in Puerto Rico.

But this came first—the choice to enter the body at all. Not forced. Not naive. Reluctant, yes—but willing, with escorts beside me.

This is how I began.