Astral projecting how to#
Astral projecting free#

Her parents would take Cassie out of school and drive the five hours from Meshoppen, Pennsylvania to Painted Post, New York, to Aunt Liz and Uncle HaroldвЂ™s chicken farm. вЂњBefore you start showing,вЂќ her mother said.

Cassie would finish as much of the school year as she could. вЂњNo one needs to know,вЂќ her mother, Adela, said after the initial wave of crying died out. If she hadnвЂ™t had to wait so long in the cheap plastic chair, she might have gone through with it. If he hadnвЂ™t had on those shoes, she might have stayed. A doctor passed through the room in shoes with thick, ridged soles, like her pediatrician wore. She sat in a cheap blue plastic chair and stared at the floor. She clutched a plastic bag holding a pair of winter socks and lied to the woman about the friend. She rode an elevator to the second floor, opened a waiting room door, smiled at the receptionist. She walked, head down, past the lone protester carrying a color photograph of a fetus. Then, for two hours on a snow-blown afternoon in January, Cassie disappeared. She made her appointment with a receptionist in Harrisburg who had a soft Caribbean accent, who called her вЂњhoneyвЂќ and told her to bring warm socks and a friend to drive her home. You have to get to Harrisburg, but then itвЂ™s easy.вЂќД¬assie went into a stall, rolled up her sleeve, and copied the number in ink alongside the vein that ran up her forearm. вЂњYou kidding me?вЂќ Gail dug through her enormous purse and pulled out a notebook with the name вЂњTommyвЂќ inked on every inch of the cover. The bullet of flesh and cartilage lodged in her uterus was going to ruin her. She hated the hair that was thickening on her legs and the blue veins tendrilling out over breasts sheвЂ™d never had before. The light was too direct, voices too loud, people ugly, food too watery or sparse or smelly. Each night she went to bed praying she could go backwards, change what sheвЂ™d done, and each morning she woke and it was worse. She felt as if her feet were sinking into the mud and every day they sank further until her knees, hips, hands, were buried her neck, mouth, eyes.

Astral projecting how to#

All she could think about was how to get through the next hour, and the next. вЂњYou keeping it?вЂќД¬assie shook her head no. Gail scanned for shoes in the other stalls. She had sucked air quietly through her mouth while he held her and cried. She could no longer abide the sour smell of boy, the damp weight of arms. She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory of the back seat of his truck, the slippery wet of his lips. вЂњYou sure?вЂќ Gail slumped against the bathroom stall door, skinny arms folded against her chest.Д¬assie had already broken up with Jayben. Everyone knew Gail had been pregnant before, and some kids said twice. Missing one period was, maybe, a fluke, but when she missed a second time Cassie cornered the girl from her homeroom with the fierce Joan Jett eyeliner. Loved in a celestial way, without judgment or fear. SheвЂ™d be untouchable, floating through an astral plane that glittered like a coverlet of fireflies. It would be a beautiful feeling, looking down on the small, awkward actions of humans.

Astral projecting free#

I began to exist in a body that was not the body I was born in.Д¬assie was sure this was possible-that if she worked hard enough sheвЂ™d be able to lift above her physical body and be free of it.

Inside, people reported astonishing things: The astral plane is indescribable, fantastical. On the cover was a drawing of two figures-one lying on his back, colored in black, and the other, hovering above, colored in red. CRAFTД¬assie found the book at a bus stop next to a pair of abandoned menвЂ™s shoes: The Study and Practice of Astral Projection: The Definitive Survey on Out-of-the-Body Experiences, by Dr. Check out BannatyneвЂ™s authorвЂ™s note for more on setting, character, and astral projection. BannatyneвЂ™s corporeal writing is honest and strong Cassie inhabits her human body, and wishes to escape her human body, with intention. The setting of 1980вЂ™s rural Pennsylvania and New York contributes to the tone of isolation. Bannatyne uses allusion in the form of a found book on astral projection to explore CassieвЂ™s pregnancy, her experience in her female body and her desire to leave that body-this is not an overly familiar teen pregnancy story. Cassie, Gail, and Carl, the teenagers, each feel supremely real. In вЂњThe Study and Practice of Astral Projection,вЂќ Lesley Bannatyne achieves a complex and authentic teen voice, capturing in protagonist Cassie the sense of entrapment and utter lack of agency that define the teenage condition (вЂњShe understood she was no longer a girl that did things she had become a girl that things happened toвЂќ).