Gen - Birth and Connection

 
Forever
It took me three cycles to reach level seven.
And another ten cycles of intense training to advance to level twelve.
At level twelve, there are only two choices.
Become Gen, or die.

Vala says that I’m almost as fast as a Gen already.
But I’m still bound to this world and this flesh.

Now that the birthing is so close, I’m filled with doubts and fears about becoming Gen.
Will I lose myself?
Who will I become?

People say that the Gen reject emotion.
Some say that they don’t feel anything at all.

Is that what waits for me?
A cold and empty life, as an intelligent, energy machine?

Vala isn’t like that.
She and I have been together, in love, for the last ten cycles.

What if Vala is a rare exception?
What if my love vanishes when I become Gen?

Right after our bonding, I asked her about relationships between Gen.
I felt her discomfort, as she pushed away the question without a direct answer.

“Can you imagine staying together for hundreds or thousands of cycles?”
“You’ll see Neebol.”
“You’ll grow bored of me at the end of ten or twenty cycles, when it’s time to become Gen.”

The birthing is tomorrow.
I touch her shoulder gently.

“There’s no more time, Vala.”
“I have to know.”
“Tell me what it feels like to be Gen.”

“Do Gen have emotions as slow ones do?”
“Do Gen bond their lives together?”

She sighs.

“A gen draws energy directly from her surroundings.”
“She’s unbound by physical form.”
“And bends the world to her will.”

“The feeling of power and freedom is incredible, and addictive”
“Most Gen focus their whole existence on that power and freedom.”
“They want to be free of every burden, and every responsibility.”

“Love, feelings, and relationships connect us to other beings.”

“Your feelings are shadows of energies far more powerful than you know.”
“People and Gen think that feelings are something inside us.”
“They think that the connection is made up, imaginary.”

“But the energies are real, and they can connect us to other beings, or anything in existence.

“Connections can be a weight that holds us down.”
“Or they can make our world larger.”

“Gen think that relationships, love, and all feelings are just burdens.”
“So most Gen bury their feelings.”

“Those who express emotion are looked at as immature, or deviant.”
“Couples who become Gen together, usually separate within a few cycles.”

“There are rare cases,” she says, “where Gen do bond together.”
“But they usually go off world.”

“What about us, Vala?”

“Do you know,” she says, “that the Gen find me disgusting because I chose this relationship with you?”
“But I don’t care what they think.”

She looks at me with her intense eyes.
“What do you want for us, Neebol?”

“I want us to be together,” I say.
“I want to explore the universe with you.”

“You once told me Vala, that you were waiting for something.”
“And when you find it, you’ll be ready to leave this world.”

“Yes, Neebol.”

“What were you waiting for, Vala?”

“I was waiting for someone playful, powerful, and loving.”
“Someone born to learn and explore.”
“Someone not trapped by power and conceit.”
“Someone with a spirit that resonates perfectly with mine.”

“I was waiting for you, Neebol.”

 
The Birthing
Vala transports us to a cavern, deep underground.
The ceiling is a hundred feet high, and the walls are dotted with a glowing green crystal.

“What is this place, Vala?”

“There are hundreds of birthing caverns like this,” she says.
“They were here waiting for us, long before there were Gen.”

“The green crystal is essential to the birthing.”
“Gen cannot create or transform these crystals, only use their energy.”

For the first time in ten cycles, Vala releases her physical form completely.
She needs to be pure energy to guide me through the birthing.

I direct my energy, so that the energy moves smoothly and quickly through my energy and physical bodies.
I spin energy around each of the seven energy wells in my energy body.

The openings to the wells are clear, light and strong.

In the center of the cavern, Vala shapes six crystal bowls, each bowl nine inches in diameter.
They hover in the air, forming a circle above our heads.

She draws energy from the seven energy wells within each of us, and weaves the energy into a bright rainbow that covers the bowls.
Our energy bodies expand to fill the cave, covering the bowls and touching the green crystals.

It takes all my strength and attention to keep my energy body in this shape.
The cave is filled with light, too bright for my energy eyes.

A single tone sounds and the rainbow shatters, forming seven spinning wheels.
Each wheel is a different color, with the green wheel spinning within the circle formed by the other six.

The wheels spin, faster and faster, brighter and brighter.
My energy body feels weak and unstable, but I feel Vala holding me together, and her thoughts touch me, promising that all will be well.

Then the green energy wheel rises out of the circle and explodes, filling the cave with a green light.
The green crystals glow, even brighter than the rest of the cave.

The other wheels dissolve, and each wheel fills one bowl with a thick colored liquid, and turns the bowl the color of the wheel.
Red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, violet.

The bowls are the same size, and still hover in the air, half way up the cavern.
But my energy eyes see a world of energy, hidden beyond each bowl.
These bowls are doors, gateways, openings to great wells of energy.

Vala’s voice sounds in my head.
“Are you ready, Neebol?”

“I’m ready, Vala, but nervous.”

“It will be perfect,” she says.
“You’ll see.”

Vala helps me bring my energy body back to its normal shape, and I move my awareness back to my physical body.
I stand on the cavern floor, underneath the circle of bowls.

I draw energy from the universe into my bones.
Strange that the hardest things in the physical body are conduits for energy.

To my energy eyes, my bones and skull glow brighter and brighter, like stars.
My physical body has a powerful glow now, visible to my ordinary eyes.

My heart speeds up, and I feel that I cannot hold this energy long.
I melt my physical body into the shape of a crystal bowl.

Then I open my energy eyes, and use energy hands to raise the empty crystal bowl.
It fills the empty center, within the circle of six bowls.

I place my energy body directly above the empty bowl.

Then I free my energy hands from the energy body.
I direct streams of energy, like tiny bolts of lightning, from my hands.
Toward all of the green crystals in the cavern.

Those streams of energy turn green.
And a green liquid fills the empty bowl.

I reach with my energy hands into the bowls, beginning with the red.
Only my energy hands penetrate the liquid.

They glow a blinding red.
The rest of my energy body remains outside the well.

My energy eyes see a great well within the bowl that seems to extend forever.
But I reach out, and seem to touch the bottom of the well.

Then my hands come out of the red well.
They continue to shine a blinding light that fades from red to white.

I repeat the process with each bowl, skipping the green bowl.

When I finish the violet bowl, it is time.
My energy hands reconnect with my energy body.
And my whole energy body enters the green bowl.

I fly quickly toward the bottom of the well.

My hands touch bottom.
And I melt the last physical remnant of my body, the crystal bowl, into energy.

With the bowl gone, the green liquid will quickly vanish.
And the way out of the well will disappear forever.

I fly as fast as I can toward the top of the well.

I burst through the last few drops of green liquid.
A few seconds before the liquid disappears.

Weak, I drift toward the ground in my energy form.

I can’t move, and I feel my life fading.
Then, I see Vala glowing like a sun.

She merges her energy body with mine.
And we share thoughts and feelings and memories.

I have no measure of time, forgetting who is Neebeol, and who Vala, wanting this experience to last forever.
But it ends, and Vala moves away, leaving some of her energy within me.

I rise up, strong, Gen.

“That was incredible, Vala.”
“How long were we together?”

“About five minutes.”

“Is every birthing so intense?”
“I can’t imagine the other Gen masters sharing themselves like this with their students.”

“No Neebol.”
“Usually the Gen gives a small gift of her energy from a distance.”
“It’s done without feeling.”

“What I did was join with you, without holding anything back.”

“Gen sometimes join together for pleasure.”
“But they hide as much of themselves as they can.”
“They close off memories and thoughts and feelings.”

“And even then, no Gen holds the joining for more than a minute.”
“The feelings of intimacy disgust them, long before the minute is done.”

“But Vala, we joined for five minutes.”
“And I felt we could stay together forever.”

“Yes, Neebol.”

“There is a legend.”
“I hope with all that I am, that it’s true.”

“When a Gen joins with another during the birthing.”
“They will always be together.”

“They will touch the edge of possibility.”
“And move their energy in ways that no other Gen can.”

 
Eyes
I am Gen for a month now.
Vala and I are so happy together as Gen.

What is it like being Gen?

Like being full of eyes.

Every part of my energy body is sensitive to energy and vibration.
I see and learn in a thousand ways, all the time.

When I focus my attention on something.
It’s like a great tunnel opens between me and the thing.

The tunnel seems infinitely long and rich.
Yet I can see the end clearly.

It reminds me of my experience in the seven wells.

I feel that my eyes are open for the first time.
Although I have no physical eyes.

I call my old people walkers, for they walk through life, while we run or fly.
Vala finds it funny, but she goes along with it.
I hate the term slow ones, and exile it from my thoughts.

I feel sorry for the walkers, that they live such a small life, in such darkness.
The sorrow I feel nearly crushes me.
Gen emotions are much stronger than what moves through the walkers.

I understand now why Gen bury their emotions.
Vala says that it’s much easier to bury the emotions than control them.
I follow my bondmate, and choose this different path, to embrace all that we are.

It was a day or two after becoming Gen, before the powerful emotions came upon me.
Soon, I will be able to control the intensity, choosing to feel the emotions in their fullness, or not.
And then, I can finally enter the stadium again.