March 25, 2022
I got an angel to laugh! I didn’t realize they had a sense of humor but apparently they do.
It’s been a strange past several weeks. I feel like I am living simultaneously in two realms, the physical world and a particular location in the Imaginal that I am connected to whether I like it or not. I’ve described this place in the Imaginal before. It’s sort of subterranean but there is daylight coming down from above. It feels like a complex of caverns, open to the world above through various chasms. It’s an earthy place, cool and moist. There is lichen and moss growing on the cave walls where the light pours in from above. It feels like both a temple and catacombs. There are ‘rooms’ carved into the rock that feel almost natural. These are where the bodies of the dead lie. There is a slab like a primitive altar and it is stained with blood. The blood is from sacrifice.
I feel safe in this place, if also a bit lonesome and sad. It is the same place that I encountered the honey-keeper from my last vision. Even though I can still feel his presence, he hasn’t made himself known to me again. I feel like he is watching me, observing and learning.
There is a strong sense of Griffin here as well. I feel in a strange way that I am bound there because of him. He feels remote and present at the same time. It is like I am sitting near his entombed body, waiting for him to wake up. I may have to wait for a very long time. Griffin and I are bonded but we are also very different people and are on different journeys that may not intersect again for a long time. This is why I feel sad and alone.
For many days, I have sat in this temple/tomb with nothing happening. I just sit, meditate and remain open, allowing whatever needs to arise. I feel like my heart is semi-entombed along with the rest of me. There is still a sense of the right and left sides of my heart being cut off from each other. It’s not a complete sense of being cut off, more like the left side–the side of bravery and courage and joy–being entombed in stone, cut off from the side of compassion and tenderness and love. I feel like Griffin is the left side of my heart because he embodies courage and passion and joy.
Again, it’s not like I don’t have any access to the left side of my heart, just that it feels more remote in some way. Separated…at least partially. Healing the split takes time and patience and understanding. And, in this place of no time, I have nothing but time. There is no hurry.
I was realizing last night how there is almost no one alive on the planet right now who knows about this place I find myself in. Humanity is barely a step beyond the bestial, almost no one is interested in their soul and even fewer are interested in the Truth. It’s been like this for thousands of years. There are only a handful of people who have learned that they aren’t just an ego with instincts to gratify and this realization–this knowing that we are at heart and soul Divine–is merely the first step in a very long journey. It is no wonder that there are so few guides. The Diamond Approach teachers are excellent at getting us to the place of taking the first step after the ego identity is no longer dominant, but most of them are still babies on the journey, too. We have so much we need to learn!
This morning, while I was meditating, I found myself back in the moss-covered caverns, seemingly sitting vigil for Griffin or whatever. I was prepared for it to be yet another simple meditation where nothing happens and I was fine with that. At some point, though, I looked up and there was a figure shrouded in a white sheet standing before me. The shroud was obviously to cover a dead body so the figure was clearly a spirit.
Curious, I wondered why this spirit had found me. I opened to it and quickly found myself taken away from the cavern. In no time, I was looking at a set of stone buildings on a mountain ridge. They were before me and I was in midair. The nearest stone building was a dormitory. I don’t know how I knew this but it was clear that was its function. One corner of the dormitory was in ruins, the walls had collapsed and there was a gaping opening. The place had been under siege and was conquered.
The spirit took me inside the dormitory where there were many bodies strewn across the floors. Like the spirit, they were covered in shrouds. I still haven’t figured out exactly what this place was. Was it a monastery of some sort? That was my first impression - the place had a fraternal, religious bent. It could also have been a fortification like a citadel or castle and the dormitory was for knights. It could have been both religious and defensive. I may never know and maybe trying to figure out where it was isn’t the point. Places and beings appear differently in the Imaginal, they probably don’t look the same as in the physical world and are more likely symbolic representations of the real thing.
I followed the spirit through the ruins of the dormitory. Ahead, there was a doorway that led into a long hall. The long hall ended at a sort of throne room. There was a raised dais at the end of the room and above it was a great stained glass window. It was round and sunlight poured through it down onto the hall below.
A figure sat on the throne. I couldn’t get a distinct view of him; he seemed to be all ages at once. It was clear that he was male and that he was tormented. He wasn’t stuck in blackness like most of the souls I encounter, though. He was upset not so much because he was dead but because so many of his followers had died. He blamed himself for their deaths and was paralyzed with grief and remorse.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who killed whom, although I got the sense that I may actually be on the side of the attackers, the ones who razed the monastery and murdered the occupants. I know that seems weird but I could feel ‘sin’ infecting the place. Some sort of crimes had been committed and they hadn’t all been committed by the attackers. There was plenty of blame to go around. Again, I’ll probably never know exactly what happened or who was to blame and it doesn’t really matter.
The tormented soul before me was what mattered and I instinctively reached out to him, trying to soothe him. He was a bit surprised to find me there and was also resistant to letting himself off the hook. He really wanted to blame himself for everything. I not only met his self-loathing with love but I met it with reason, telling him of the lessons I’ve learned in the Imaginal, namely that perfection is not required. Despite the crimes that he and his acolytes may have committed, I could feel beneath everything their love and devotion to the Divine. That love may not have been in the forefront, guiding their actions, as much as it could have been but it was there and that’s the important thing. At least on some level, they had a sincere love of the Truth.
Further, I told him that failure was part of life (and death.) We don’t always succeed. Certainly, I’ve experienced my share of failure both in the physical world and the Imaginal. I told him that the important thing is to fail well and I asked him if he had done so: Had he failed well? He thought about it and agreed that he had. He had fought, sincerely believing he was doing the right thing and behaving as best as he could under the circumstances.
It’s not really my place to offer absolution but that was basically what happened. In penetrating his fog of despair and self-recrimination, I helped him to see the truth and he was able to let himself off the hook. He was able to let go of the grief and hurt and sadness. He was shriven and he and the rest of the spirits slowly disappeared, leaving me alone in the throne room.
I stood there for a while, feeling the sad beauty of the place. I was particularly drawn to the stained glass window overhead and admired it. Soon, the colors of the glass coalesced and an angel emerged. He was a glorious being to behold, unique in his coloration which matched that of the glass. The window, I realized, had been built as an offering to him. He was an agent of the Divine.
He was also a little perturbed with me. I don’t exactly why but I think he felt like I’d scooped him somehow. He may have felt that I had overstepped and done his job for him. I explained that I’d only responded to the spirit who called me. Part of his concern was that he didn’t recognize me so I invited him to inspect me, opening up to him and allowing him to merge with me. He could tell that I wasn’t motivated by ego because, if I had been, he would have immediately seen that. (You can’t hide the truth from angels!)
After inspecting me, he seemed somewhat mollified. It was here that I made him laugh by saying, “Now, c’mon, you have to admit that I’m pretty cute, right?” It was impish and flirtatious of me. I didn’t expect him to respond but he laughed out loud. It surprised both of us because I had thought that angels didn’t have a sense of humor and my reply had caught him off guard.
The angel appeared as many things at once which makes me think he might have been a seraph. One of the things he appeared as was a golden man–a very handsome golden man. I told him he was attractive and invited him to merge once again with me, this time for pleasure. Surprisingly, he agreed and I learned that angels not only have genitals but they also apparently possess buttholes, too. ;-) It feels scandalous to write that but there was nothing sinful about our union. It wasn’t motivated by lust but by offering ourselves to each other for tasting and exploring and touching. The divine equivalent of sex.
I hope I meet him again.
***
