An ancient compass, carved by a master's hand from the first century, finds its way to the jungles of Guatemala, carried in secret by a Jesuit priest who shares it with his lover, a Mayan queen. Now after being buried for years in the ruins of a Mayan village it resurfaces, and it just may be the only existing testament from the man known as Jesus. Ashera Sandriene is an anthropologist, born in Provence to a mother who disappeared mysteriously when she was only a child, and raised in New York by her father, whose success as an artist seems to be tied to a mysterious group of twelve men known as the Consensus. Her husband, Günter Burbank, the head of an international pharmaceutical firm, wants the secrets of the compass for his research into what he calls the "immortal gene." He is opposed in his search by the leader of the Consensus, a Southern evangelical minister who wants the compass for his own purposes. On the eve of Günter and Ashera's 20-year anniversary party a mysterious man appears and tells her that he is in the lineage, or as he calls it the seed of the man who made the compass. Together they go on a spiritual journey to a seed community in Guatemala, through ancient caves that preserve the history of the world, and into another dimension called the Third State where she meets her mother, and her mother's angel, Mitra. What she discovers there may be the key to the future for humankind. This story arcs from 31A.D. to the end of the Mayan calendar, December 21st 2012. As the end of the Mayan cycle approaches, clashes between religion and science, belief and direct experience, and territorial attachments to the past are entwined in an evolutionary battle that will determine whether humans are bound to their past, or rise above it to greater heights. This is the first book in a series. Book II is called Angel Training.
