December 22, 2022
On Saturday after my meditation during which I met up with Griffin, he remained available to me for a few hours afterwards. We had an interesting “conversation”--it really felt like a conversation even though there were no words. He had a complex mixture of emotions around our relationship ranging from deep love and delight to resentment and anger. Basically, even though he treasures me and would never wish to not be bonded with me as a soulmate, he is also suffering and hurting as a result of our union. He has never been particularly introspective and thus doesn’t have a strong motivation to do the inner work on his soul. He’s more externally focused and couldn’t really be described as intellectual. It takes him a lot longer to learn things and he feels like he weighs me down. Additionally, when we were alive together in our previous lives, he feels like he gave and gave and gave, taking on an almost traditionally feminine role in caring for me. He cared for and protected me and showed me how to function in the world. I wasn’t very well suited to life in a physical body and he really had his work cut out for him. He sacrificed a lot, up to and including his own life (and mine) at the end.
Additionally, he has the weight and baggage of having committed suicide whereas I don’t have that. Plus, he has to live with knowing he murdered me. True, it was a mercy killing but it was still murder. I remembered how the souls of people who committed suicide were often completely drained of life and blood when I met them in the Imaginal. Thinking back to my meditation on 12/17/22, that was how he appeared to me when I met up with him in the cave: Drained of life.
I admit that I am narcissistic and I tend to think of myself first. It didn’t occur to me until our conversation how tough Griffin’s life–both embodied and not–has been. It made me want to support him more and indeed I could feel myself supporting him, giving him the love and wherewithal to boost him up. I could feel his love for me and also recognized that, despite our being bonded, his journey is separate from mine and he has to do it alone…at least for now. It’s painful to be kept apart but also necessary. I’m sure we will be reunited again at some point but have no idea when.
***
This morning I became aware of another desire demon only this one was glutted like a tick filled to bursting with blood. I am fascinated by these demons because they feed off the libidinal energies of their hosts and as such would be considered parasites. I’m sure there are many such parasites in the Imaginal realms and they afflict us humans in many, many ways. Still, the ecologist in me recognizes that everything has a role to play; there are no accidents in nature. And the same is true in the Imaginal. Ideally, I think, these parasitic demons don’t overfeed but merely siphon off a small amount of the host’s energy and move on.
Sometimes, the parasite manages to ensnare more than just the human soul and compromises the human’s divine protector as well. (I suppose some people might call these protectors guardian angels but they are not all angels. It seems like pretty much everyone has a protector, although the protectors vary in strength and efficacy. Also, they’re not there to physically protect the human; they’re there just to protect them from other entities that might harm them. The deity that I sometimes call Apis is one of my protectors and the Woman in White also functions in this way at times, albeit I think she is there less to protect me and more to help collect the souls I free.) Perhaps the protector who is ensnared is weak in some way? If you recall, I’ve ‘rescued’ at least a couple of souls who had protectors attached to them and these protectors had been compromised. Thus, I can sometimes liberate both the human soul and their protector. Today was one such example.
It took me a while before I was able to see the hapless human soul being fed upon by the desire demon. The demon was so big and gross. It looked less like an engorged tick than a engorged larva, pulsing and fat and disgustingly filled with blackened blood. As disgusting as it was, though, I didn’t detect anything evil about it. Quite the opposite! These demons are just doing what they do. Like I said, they’re part of the Imaginal ecosystem just like everything else and they have their place. So, while they can appear pretty revolting, appearance has nothing to do with their merit or lack of it.
I felt no ill will toward the parasite and was merely curious about it. I also could tell that it wasn’t any danger to me. So, I bowed to it like I bow to everything I meet in the Imaginal and sat there, not doing anything. Gradually, I realized that I could ‘see’ inside of it and there was a young man in there. This young guy was clearly the demon’s host. He seemed pretty average in every way, not super good looking or exemplary in any particular way, just your average dude. He was, however, quite trapped and in the thrall of the demon. I got the sense that the demon had bitten off too much and it didn’t want to be attached to this young man any longer. It wanted to move on but could not.
The question came up: Why couldn’t the parasite move on? After all, it’s not in any parasite’s best interest to kill its host. There had to be something else going on here. There wasn’t anything I could do but sit and wait. I didn’t need to wait too long. Gradually, the young guy became less drained of life and more robust, essentially back to his normal self. As this happened, I became aware of the bones of a deceased saber tooth tiger. The bones were like those of an animal that had been picked (mostly) clean of flesh by vultures but that was also only recently dead. As I looked at the empty eye sockets of the tiger’s skull, yellow-gold eyes appeared inside. The agony and suffering in those eyes broke my heart and I cried. Clearly, these bones belonged to the young man’s protector and it was suffering horribly as a result of being ensnared by the parasite.
I knew this protector needed something from me to free himself. The only thing that I could offer was my heart, which I did without hesitation. Holding out my hands, palms facing upward, they appeared to be filled with radiant whitish blue light. The being accepted the gift and was soon awash in blue-white light.
At the same time, we both stayed with the grief and sadness. The combination of the heart-light and owning the pain had a transformative effect on the being. Soon sinews appeared on the tiger’s bones, knitting them together. These were followed by muscles and then skin. Soon, the tiger was fully enfleshed and appeared more like an anthro-saber-toothed tiger than simply a tiger. It stood erect on two legs like a man and had two, powerful arms with clawed fingers. It was wearing a robe of blue-white light. I approached and hugged him, burying my face in his soft fur.
And so both the protector and the young man were free. I could see how that young man appeared like his protector. Both had the same tawny-colored hair and a similar build. They departed, leaving me with the parasitic desire demon. Even the demon had transformed, although it was still kind of disgusting. Appearing as half-man and half-spider, the man’s torso was welded upon a spider’s giant body with long, thin legs. Its abdomen was swollen but not nearly as huge as before. The man’s body was dark-haired and bearded. He had a robust body and a sizable gut. He looked healthy and could only be described as happy. I guess he was glad to be free of the unholy union as well.
***
