Always Watching

brother. Aaron gave him a smile.
    A female member said, “You have no one?”
    He shook his head. “Nope, and good riddance. Our parents were just teenagers. After they had Joseph, my dad took off, leaving us with our mother. She was an alcoholic.”
    Aaron handed the little boy back to his mother, then lifted up his jeans leg, showing us small round scars up and down his shins. “These are from cigarettes.”
    Some of us gasped, or made sympathetic noises, and Joy, whom we’d met the first day, reached out to touch his shoulder. “That’s terrible.”
    “It wasn’t as bad as this.” He lifted the back of his shirt, revealing long red scars, the flesh raised and jagged-looking. “That’s from when she dragged me naked over broken glass because I’d tried to feed Joseph, after she forgot.” His face was angry as he dropped his shirt back down. “She only cared about herself.”
    I had never heard someone talking so openly about their feelings and didn’t know what to think. I had never told anyone about my own family’s struggles. I noticed my brother also studying Aaron, admiration in his face.
    Aaron said, “She eventually split. We had to live with our grandfather, until he finally died.” He stared into the fire, poked at a piece of wood, his mouth a grimace. “He was a real bastard.”
    He fell silent, gazing into the fire. Joy, her voice soft, said, “Where did you go after he died?”
    He roused himself, blinking at her like he just remembered that he was still with people. “We lived on the streets, then we met some people and were taken into an ashram. I studied under a guru for a few years.”
    One of the male members leaned forward. “You got to study with a guru? Is that how you learned to meditate?”
    We’d all seen him meditating every day, and some were already joining him.
    Aaron looked excited now. “It was amazing, everything he taught me, how to live a spiritual life—you guys have no idea what you can do with your own power, it’s untapped,” he said. “I used to suffer from back pain every day. I couldn’t even bend over, but my guru taught me that I was creating my own pain by holding all my fear and anger inside. He showed me how to release it with meditation, and now…” He stood up and stretched, touched his toes.
    *   *   *
    After that night it seemed the members grew more willing to follow Aaron’s advice. None of us had much experience living off the land. Some of the other members were straight from the city, with vague romantic notions of roughing it and getting back to basics. It had been a tough winter, and many of them were losing heart. But Aaron wasn’t just playing at the hippie lifestyle, he was living it. He must’ve seemed incredibly worldly to most of the kids who’d grown up in Canada and had never even been out of BC. He’d also gained a lot of skills—agriculture, carpentry, how to run a farm—and he was generous and patient about sharing that knowledge. Aaron showed the commune how to build a sweat lodge so we could cleanse our chakras, which when blocked or damaged could affect our physical and emotional health. He also held kirtana meditation ceremonies in the lodge, where we’d all chant as a group, sometimes using musical instruments and clapping our hands, but he mostly taught transcendental meditation.
    The young men were always trying to impress Aaron with some feat of strength or bravery, working from dusk to dawn by his side, never complaining, even if they hurt themselves. The girls also followed him around, giggling if he glanced their way, and I’d hear them talking about how good-looking he was, how cool and fun. But it was more than that.
    Aaron remembered details about each member, where they were from, what their family life had been like. He suggested that one shy young man take charge of the horses, and the man grew more confident every day, teaching others how to ride and look after the tack. Another member, a woman who always spoke in a whisper, was encouraged by Aaron to take over responsibility for all our meals when he realized how good a cook she was. She too blossomed, ordering the kitchen helpers about, loudly scolding us kids for stealing a snack.
    He’d also trained in vibrational healing, the ability to move his own energy through others. When a member complained of back pain, a headache, or various other ailments, Aaron offered to take them for a private meditation in his tent. He’d use his hands