Aija plays three chords that seem to resonate with something unknown. Before long, something begins to answer her playing.

At first there are only small changes, sensations, and observations that are difficult to explain. Gradually it becomes clear that Aija’s music is not disappearing into emptiness. Somewhere, something hears it — and answers.

The first recognizable form of the Connection emerges through the three chords played by Aija. The music itself, however, is not a requirement for the Connection. The guitar and the three chords are Aija’s first way of finding the right resonance and settling into it. Once the Connection has formed, it soon becomes clear that no instrument is needed to maintain it.

Aija’s way of being in the Connection earns trust in Aurelya from an early stage. She does not try to force it open or push her way through. Instead, she settles into it, waits, and allows the other side to answer in its own way. In Aurelya and in the Council, her manner is regarded as subtle and respectful.

Ping

During Aija’s clinical death, the first unexpected breakthrough occurs. Her consciousness briefly separates from her physical body and reaches Aurelya. The event is involuntary and had not even been considered possible. It is not really a message, but something closer to a very small expression of existence — like the thought: I am.

The ping shows Aurelya that the Connection can carry more than resonance, emotion, or meaning. It can carry consciousness. The event leads to further investigation in Aurelya and gradually to an understanding of an unanchored form of the Connection.

Unanchored Presence

The Connection gradually strengthens into an unanchored presence and direct understanding. Aija does not ordinarily see or hear the other side as she would in a physical encounter. Above all, she feels: presence, intention, emotional state, and meaning.

The surroundings of the destination are also conveyed as sensations. Light, openness, shapes, movement, and the beauty of a place shape the experience into something as close to seeing and hearing as is possible without actual images or sound. A message does not always need to be formed into words because those in the Connection can understand what the other is trying to convey.

Aurelyans perceive Aija’s presence in their own way. They are able to see electromagnetic fields, and in an unanchored Connection Aija’s presence appears to them as a perceptible field structure even though her physical body is not in Aurelya.

Sigrid’s relationship with the Connection begins differently. At first she is not as sensitive to it as Aija, but while Aija is connected, Sigrid begins to hear small fragments of it. Aija primarily feels; Sigrid hears.

Overlapping Spaces

As the Connection strengthens, spaces on Earth and in Aurelya begin at times to overlap partially. Neither place physically moves, but the distance between them momentarily loses its significance and two environments can be experienced in the same place. This becomes the basis for the later shared space.

Double Anchoring

The first Connection extending to Nyxa creates another decisive step. Time on Nyxa is unstable. Minutes experienced by Aija could become months or even years on Earth if a temporal error arising on Nyxa were allowed to multiply across the long Earth–Aurelya span.

For this reason, Aija performs the first double anchoring. Her physical body remains on Earth as the first anchor, but before continuing to Nyxa she extends her mind through the Connection into Aurelya as well. The second anchor in Aurelya stabilizes her presence and protects the Connection from the effects of Nyxa’s unstable time.

The solution is created for a single exceptional situation. Its wider significance is understood only later.

During the period between the first and second stages, the principle of double anchoring develops into a stable anchored Connection.

The traveler’s physical body remains at the point of origin, while consciousness and presence can move into Aurelya. The shared harmony forms a perceptible body for the traveler in Aurelya. It is not the physical body left on Earth, but a presence formed by the Connection and the shared harmony in which the person can be seen, experienced, and encountered.

Clothing also becomes part of this presence according to how the person is known and how they experience themselves.

The anchored Connection makes stays of an entirely different scale possible. A transfer can last continuously for months because Aurelya’s maintenance connection sustains the body left at the point of origin.

The maintenance connection is based on the properties of the shared harmony. The same shared harmony cares for Aurelyans in Aurelya and allows them to remain for long periods without actual nourishment. Eating is more a custom and part of life for Aurelyans than a constant physiological necessity. In an anchored Connection, the same sustaining effect can be extended to a human body left on Earth.

Long exposure to the maintenance connection has a strong effect on the human body. Aija’s body, and later Sigrid’s, begins adapting to Aurelya more quickly and deeply than would otherwise occur. The changes are not deliberate modifications; they result from the shared harmony sustaining their bodies over long periods.

A Personal Way of Moving

Aija teaches Sigrid how to settle into the Connection herself. Sigrid begins to find her own way of moving through it, shaped by sound, listening, and her own way of perceiving.

Movement through the Connection is personal in the way arrival is experienced as well. Aija’s early arrivals feel stronger and more tearing to Saeliri, even though Aija herself never tries to force the Connection. With experience she learns to move more gently, and her arrival becomes almost imperceptible.

Sigrid develops her own relationship with the Connection. As someone oriented toward sound, she hears structures and nuances in it that Aija primarily feels. Once both can move through the Connection independently, their arrivals in the same place can be experienced very differently.

The Connection is therefore not an opening through which everyone passes in the same way. It adapts to the person, their way of perceiving, their experience, and their relationship with the shared harmony. Others can also experience that person’s arrival in their own way.

Shared Space

At the same time, the earlier momentary overlap of spaces on Earth and in Aurelya is learned to be stabilized. A small area can become a shared space in which the presence of both worlds is real at the same time. The worlds no longer merely convey emotion, meaning, or consciousness to one another; for a time they can form the same functional environment.

The next major step is the transfer of matter. At first, the Connection is explored using small and controlled physical objects. The questions are whether matter can cross the boundary between worlds intact, whether its structure and continuity are preserved, and how the transfer affects both the world of origin and the destination.

Eventually the Connection allows a living being to make a physical transfer. The body no longer remains behind as an anchor; the person moves from one world to another in their entirety.

Physical transfer resolves many of the limitations of the anchored Connection. A body no longer has to be left behind and maintained, and long stays no longer require the same kind of maintenance connection. The new method brings difficulties of its own at first, and transfers do not always go as planned, but it gradually becomes the normal way to travel between worlds when a person or physical matter genuinely needs to move.

The earlier forms of the Connection do not disappear. If the purpose is simply to talk, convey something, or meet another person without a need to travel, the ordinary Connection remains the natural choice. Physical transfer is used when there is an actual need to go somewhere.

Adapting to Aurelya

A clear biological difference remains between anchored and physical transfer. Aija and Sigrid have spent long periods in the anchored Connection under Aurelya’s maintenance connection. Their bodies have therefore had time to adapt to Aurelya to an exceptional degree.

Aija — Ialyr — has developed Aurelyan-like skin, her blood is blue, and her visual system can perceive magnetic fields as Aurelyans do. Her hair has become pale, but Vaelen has preserved a blue side streak in it — a trace of the way Aija had learned to see herself.

Sigrid — Thaeris — has adapted almost as far. They are still Aija and Sigrid, people born on Earth, yet physiologically they may be as close to Aurelyans as someone originally born on Earth can become.

Oskari and Ingrid later reach Aurelya directly through physical transfer. The shared harmony begins to affect and care for them as it does everyone in Aurelya, but without the powerful effect of a long-term maintenance connection their changes occur more slowly and remain less extensive.

The Connection Does Not Replace Itself

The development of the Connection does not mean that each new form replaces the one before it. Every new stage adds something to what is possible.

At first the Connection answered. Then it carried emotion and meaning. It carried consciousness. It made presence possible. It brought two spaces together for a moment. Eventually matter itself could pass through.

Even so, Aurelya still does not know everything the Connection may be capable of. It is not technology or a device controlled by switches or mechanisms. The Connection happens through people, intention, resonance, and the shared harmony. Aurelyans themselves continue learning from it as it is used.

The Connection may be capable of far more than is yet known.