October 12, 2021

 I should know by now not to doubt the Imaginal because there is always a method to its madness, although that method may remain obscure for a quite long time. I still don’t have a full understanding of what the fuck the dogman was all about but I do have a bit more insight. You may recall that yesterday when I met him, he said he needed my help. My meditation ended, however, before we got to what sort of help he needed.

Today, when I sat down, I almost immediately perceived a black window. It seemed like it was in a laboratory. The floor was concrete and everything had a clinical feel to it. Not very welcoming, cold. It took me a moment to remember my initial experiences in the Bardo; at those times, when I was drawn to lost souls, they were invariably trapped in blackness. I knew that this was another one of those situations; the soul I was there to retrieve was behind the black window.

I stepped through it and found a figure lying on its side on the floor. I realized that it was naked and covered in fur like the dogman I met yesterday. I knew immediately that this poor, suffering creature was his mate. I perceived him as a male, although it’s not clear if that was just my wishful thinking. (Queerz rule!) In any case, it was clear that this person/dog hybrid was emaciated, covered in filth and barely alive. He was also suffering terribly. I cried as I knelt beside him, cradling his head in my hands.

Unlike his mate who had a vaguely shepherd-like head, this dogman had floppy ears and looked more like a hound. He was distinctly more delicate than his mate, almost fragile and this wasn’t simply because he was starving and had been tortured to within an inch of his life. He was the uke to his mate’s seme.

I understood then about the help that his mate needed: He needed me to free his mate from this prison. My guess is that what I was seeing was a soul who had died but remained trapped in the horror of their demise. That happens sometimes...or maybe I just tend to meet such souls. I am drawn to them (or led to them) because I can penetrate the blackness surrounding them.

This dogman had been experimented on in this laboratory. The suffering inflicted upon him was monstrous and I knew that it was my fellow humans who were responsible. I don’t know if this was a strictly symbolic meeting; i.e., the dogman was merely a stand-in for the horrors inflicted upon our fellow species in the name of science, or if there was a thread of truth linking this experience to the ‘real’ world. If it is linked to the real world, it seems like something from the future because I’m not aware of humans having the capability yet to splice species together, forming Chimeras. I could be wrong, though. It’s hard to tell. (This is where I can’t spend too much time trying to locate these Imaginal experiences in the real world because it’s not really possible. It’s more important that I perceive the truth behind them.)

I lifted this poor, tortured and dying dogman in my arms. As I did so, a portal opened before us. It was filled with soothing, soft, healing blue light. I placed the dogman in the portal and it closed again, leaving me alone in the blackness of his cell.

For the first time during my journeys to the Imaginal, I felt rage and annihilating hatred toward the men who had done this. I didn’t do anything about it, though. What could I do? I can’t do any harm in the Imaginal even if I wanted to. Instead, I just stood there and felt the rage and hatred welling up inside me. After a while, the experience shifted and I realized that I had to include myself with the objects of my hatred. My hands are just as bloody; I am just as much to blame.

I see that I am complicit in a toxic way of living, one that transforms the Earth and all of its precious beings into resources for exploitation and extraction. I have benefited materially from this way of ‘living’ and continue to do so, despite the overwhelming evidence that this approach to life is killing all of us. My hands are dripping with the blood of innocents. If I am to be filled with hatred and rage toward my fellow humans, I need to include myself in their number.

What always gets me about the beings I encounter in the Imaginal is their amazing compassion and forgiveness. They are so ready to welcome me--me, one of the fallen ones, one of the perpetrators, one of the guilty--and are unfailingly kind and gracious and even excited to meet me.

One recurring theme of these journeys is karma and karma was front and center of this experience. I felt the negative karma I have accumulated along with the rest of my fellow humans like heavy, brown mud. Suddenly, I remembered my experience a few days ago when I met the woman/animated corpse. She was drowning in the mud of decay. Her world was completely dead, devoid of any life whatsoever.

I saw that I am in that world and I am just as much of a hungry ghost/animated corpse as she is. All of humanity is. I understand now why we are so fixated on zombies. We are the zombies. What are zombies but the living dead with an overpowering hunger to devour the brains of the living. If we see ourselves as zombies and the ‘brains’ of the living as the Earth and its resources...well, you get it.

I realized that I’ve been mistaken. I have blamed capitalism for the sorrows and outrages and depredations of the world. In doing so, I have set myself apart from the rest of humanity, believing that somehow I was separate from them. I was better than they are. I was pure; they were contaminated.

Now I see that I am just as much to blame as everyone else. It’s not capitalism but our stagnated development that is to blame. We grow and develop only to a certain point and then we stop, believing we’ve reached our apex. But the ego is not the apex; it’s only a stage and much, much, much more growth is needed for us to become truly human. Even I, who has dedicated my life to spiritual work, am remiss. I have fallen short. I am lazy. I am resting in comfort, content with my little piece of the pie. Once I have my pie, I fall asleep to the injustice and crimes that I am perpetrating. I am just as complicit as all the rich, white people I detest. I am a rich, white person, too.

One reason I am called into the Imaginal to help the lost souls is because I, too, am a lost soul. Oh, I am perhaps a little less lost but I live in the dead realm just like the rest of humanity. I am ‘trapped’ in a lifeless, toxic place filled with mud and clouds that obscure the sun, filled with ravenous zombies. I am a zombie, too. I am just as ravenous. Just as bereft. Just as empty. Just as hopeless. Just as guilty of perpetrating horrendous acts of cruelty against my fellow beings, my fellow humans, the beautiful Earth.

I guess one who is stuck in the mud but who also has access to the numinous real world is needed to help find and free the lost. I am both lost and found. I occupy an in-between realm, one that is in the middle of lost and found. I am stuck and free at the same time.

This gives a new meaning to these experiences and brings a hefty dose of humility. It’s not that I’m some sort of savior; I’m just a bridge. I am caught in the muck and suffering but have a hand free to reach to the stars. I am aware of my stuckness, my sleepiness, my incomplete development. It helps me to wake up, to pull myself upward...and to help my fellow humans who are more stuck than I am. I am pulling them up along with me. It’s painstaking and incredibly slow work.

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