August 30, 2022

 Another meditation, another WTF moment. This morning when the eye opened, I was looking at living stone that glittered with colors of midnight blue, purple and black. I was in an archway that opened into a dark chamber. The chamber reached so high I couldn’t see the ceiling but the walls were of the same beautiful stone. There was a creature of pure blackness inside. It was immense, at least the size of a brontosaur and shaped much the same. It took me a while to realize the creature had three heads. One was the ‘dinosaur’ (actually, a serpent head but not the head of viper or poisonous snake), one was birdlike (horrific in a way, somewhat skeletal with huge, penetrating eyes and greasy feathers) and the last was mammalian (not like any one mammal, sort of a cross between a buffalo and a bear.) The bird head was most interested in me and leaned down close, its glittery eyes searching me closely. It could see inside me and I knew this was a test. If it didn’t like what it saw, I would be banished.


I found I was naked, both physically and psychically. There would be no secrets from this creature; I had to bare all of me as honestly as possible. I didn’t try to hide anything and was bluntly honest about myself. I’m definitely not perfect and have done many things in my life that I’m not proud of. I bared everything to the creature.


This wasn’t about judgment. In other words, the creature wasn’t judging the content of me, rather it was seeing how honest I was. After several minutes of intense scrutiny, I guess I must have passed the test because it let me go past.


On the other side of the immense, three-headed creature was an immense spider. The spider was similar to the Grandmother Spider I encountered last October but I didn’t get the sense this had anything to do with the Native American tradition. It was a different spider, although connected to the Cosmos in a similar way. Behind it, the rock glowed luminous purple, blue and black and glittered with ‘stars’ - it was very much like looking out on the universe with its billions of galaxies.


The spider was kinder than the bird-headed monster had been and, in its way, it welcomed me. I know it didn’t have a neck but I couldn’t resist hugging it. It was just so cuddly even if it did have eight of the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. Those eyes examined me just as closely as the bird head had done. There was more compassion this time and the experience was less of a test than a welcoming. 


Eventually, it stepped aside to reveal a figure behind it. The figure was that of a young woman. At first I thought she was trussed up in spider silk but then I realized she was merely sleeping and her blanket was woven from spider silk. She never revealed the lower part of her body so I don’t know if she was completely human in form but the top part of her was.


Waking from her sleep, she congratulated me on having passed the test and offered to bestow a gift upon me. At this point, I was aware that the bird head was poised once again behind me, its glittering eyes fixed upon me. Part of me couldn’t resist thinking of some perverse wish and I felt myself momentarily transformed into a beast-like creature. It was meant to be a curse, I think, for profaning the offer. The sensation quickly passed, though, and I was back to my old, naked self. (I hadn’t really been serious about the profane wish.)


In answer to her question, I held out my hands in the moodrah of equanimity, meaning that I didn’t want anything.


“Come on,” she chided. “Surely, you must want something!”


I thought about it and honestly told her that my strongest and most sincere longing was to always draw closer to the truth and, in doing so, to serve the Divine. I know it sounds hokey but it’s the truth. I don’t want youth or money or power or success or fame or anything of the usual things. I really just want to keep discovering the truth no matter where it leads me.


She nodded and offered me something, holding it up for my inspection. It appeared to be a stone, an opal. The opal was shimmering and translucent, its colors constantly shifting. Now it would glow white and pearly and then it would turn black and luminous. It wasn’t really a stone because it wasn’t rocklike at all, rather it felt like it was living. 


The woman held the stone up to my forehead and placed it there. I could feel it open like a third eye and wondered about it. Why an opal? Shouldn’t it have been a diamond or some other jewel? Maybe it was an opal because of its pearly quality? I don’t know.


Also, why was I called there? I didn’t ask for the gift, didn’t ask to be tested by the monster that guarded her. I wasn’t aware of needing anything from her, much less an opal. As I said, it was another WTF experience in the Imaginal. Many it means something and maybe it’s just a hallucination.


***

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