December 3, 2022
I am really tired after a very long week. I thought I work up refreshed but as the day wears on, I can tell I’m frustrated with working so much. Additionally, since I’ve returned from the Philippines, I haven’t had very many experiences in the Imaginal. It’s not like I feel cut off from the depths of my nature and the subtle realms. Quite the opposite! I feel very connected to multiple levels of Reality.
It had been so long since I had an Imaginal experience that I thought they were over and the focus of my soul’s development had moved on. This may still be the case but this morning I had a very palpable experience.
Some background: I have increasingly come to believe that I have spiritual parents in addition to biological ones. The Divine, of course, is the real ‘parent’ of our soul but it seems like we are born in the spirit first before being born in the body. My spiritual parents are Life and Death, light and dark, night and day. They feel primitive, pre-human heart. They are not cozy or particularly loving but they are nonetheless present in my experience and provide one of the grounds that my soul knows as home. I’m not saying it is the home, just a home. In particular, I frequently feel my home is in a deep, ancient forest primeval. It is a magical place, filled with all sorts of entities, including many of my brothers and sisters.
This morning, I found myself in the forest. It was twilight and beautiful. There were many creatures around me, many softly glowing with inner luminescence - much like my soul body. My soul body was softly glowing gold and my body appeared like that of a young boy. I didn’t do anything, just stayed silent and still. I was aware that, by glowing golden, I was like a beacon to others. This is a common experience in the Imaginal; by shining, I draw darkness to me.
The darkness didn’t take long to emerge. She appeared at first as a tormented revenant, a black, maimed, tortured being who looked to be covered in black tar. She was in such deep pain! And she wasn’t alone…but I’ll get to that in a bit.
My first inclination was love and reached out to embrace her in all of her pain and torment. I didn’t care if she was covered in tar, she needed love so badly and I only wanted to give it to her. We hugged each other for a long time and slowly the tar dripped off of her, revealing a human woman. She appeared to be white and brown-haired. As the tar melted from her, she was like a new human being, so fresh and soft and touchable. Her grief and sadness and pain melted away as well and she was free. Well, sort of.
I noticed that she was tethered to something behind her. The tether was like a rope covered in slimy tar. Curious, I followed the rope to another ‘monster.’ This one appeared like a towering godlike creature with huge antlers. Like the woman had been, it was covered in dripping, black tar. It was fierce and tortured, much like the woman had been. While its outward form was frightening, I wasn’t afraid. At first, I believed that it was a demon that was connected to the woman and, given how big and ferocious it was, I wondered if one of my protectors would show up to take care of it for me because clearly I didn’t possess sufficient inner strength to handle a demon of such magnitude.
When no protector came, I realized that I wasn’t in any danger and that I had what it took to handle this so-called demon. Perhaps not surprisingly, it turned out not to be a demon at all but two beings: A human male and another creature I will describe in a moment.
This man was being held down by the other creature, its huge paws or cloven hooves or whatever were on his shoulders. It was hard to tell because both were so covered and caked in tar that they appeared to be one creature. This is why I thought at first that they were one demon.
Like the woman (who was now standing, waiting behind me), I rushed to hug the man, effectively pulling him away from the creature. He was a human male and appeared to be in his mid-thirties or maybe early forties with black hair and a black beard. I couldn’t tell exactly what race he was. Like the woman, the tar gradually dissolved as we hugged and I invited him to show himself to me, not hiding anything. I did the same, showing him that I was really no different in many ways from him. There was one key difference, though: I glowed from within with the pure, beautiful, soft golden light. I explained to him that there was nothing really all that special about me, only that my soul had developed in this way over time and with great effort. This was important because he could see that I’m far from perfect. The message was clear: You don’t need to be perfect to be a being of the Truth, you just have to be committed to the Truth…no matter what. Even if there are times when you’re distracted or led astray or feel like you will never be found - you will always come back to the Truth eventually.
I should mention that even though there was plenty of nudity involved during this excursion into the Imaginal - the woman, man and I…and the creature were all quite naked - there was no erotica tension present. This was because it was clear to me that the man, woman and creature were all heterosexual. Moreover, nothing about the situation called for sexuality to be expressed. Now, if you’ve read other entries in this document, you know that’s not always the case. This time, though, sexuality didn’t really come into the experience.
I realized as I was hugging the man that he was tethered to the woman and the tether, which had originally been caked in tar, was now just a slim rope. It was a symbol of connection, not one of binding or imprisonment. The woman wanted to be connected to the man as much as he wanted to be connected to her. The nature of their connection was perhaps responsible for a lot of their suffering but not all. There was genuine love and affection there, too.
The man, now cleansed of black tar, was free to join the woman. They were now naked in the forest, a sort of Adam and Eve returned to the Garden of Eden. Like that original story in Genesis, though, they could not stay there. The forest was just a temporary place for them and they needed to pass through it. Perhaps one day they may return under different circumstances and be allowed to stay? It’s hard to tell. It felt like an important waypoint in their journey, though.
This left me with the giant, antlered creature. He was definitely fearsome with glowing red eyes and blood and gore dripping from his horns onto his tarred body. I know that the way I describe him makes him sound very unappealing but I was drawn to him by love and something else that I later identified as recognition. I went to him as well and hugged him, lowering my face onto his furry shoulder and crying. The tar evaporated as we hugged, like it had for the man and woman, and soon I was inhaling the rich scent of his clean fur. He was a handsome beast, half man and half moose or elk.
I realized then that he looked very much like the god I think of as the father of my spirit. He always appears as a giant half-man and half-stag being. An ancient and primitive being full of the power of life but missing much of the delicate sensitivity of the human soul. It’s not like he’s incapable of compassion, just that it’s not his nature. There is a peculiar kind of care that this god shows to his children but he’s also capricious and can seem cruel…much like our mother. I look at it this way: In the physical world, our mother and father imbue us with certain characteristics and qualities but it’s our job to grow and develop. As we develop and mature, we are less and less like them until finally there may be very little we have in common. Such might be the case with our mother and father in the spiritual realm. Like I said, our true parent is the Divine regardless who gave birth to us.
I understood that this creature was my brother. He was bigger and older than I but I don’t think he had lived in a human body in the physical world like I have. Being in a physical body is a tremendous and powerful gift, one that forever alters us in innumerable ways. Because he had not inhabited a physical body, he had not yet developed some of the capacities that I have. Or perhaps he had been in a body but still hadn’t ‘awakened’ to his inner nature completely. This awakening is our recognition that the Divine is our source, that we are inseparable from the Divine. In Essence–and I mean true Essence here–we are the Divine. This is what makes us shine, we children of the Divine.
I hugged him for a long time. Again, it was a fraternal sort of hug. Nothing sexual despite the fact that he was quite a stud. Slowly, his form shifted until he was more like a human male. A very big and muscular human male! He was clad in leathers and had a sharp knife on his belt. He had long, black or brown hair and was quite strapping. There was a wildness about him, almost as if he were half feral. As I looked up at him, I realized that I had known him for a very long time. He had taught me many things about the forest and had been a good and kind mentor.
I also remembered that he’d appeared to me - or the memory of him at least - during a meditation a couple weeks ago. At the time, I wasn’t sure if he was an earlier incarnation of Griffin but now I know that he is not. If he had been an incarnation of Griffin, we most certainly would have had sex. Or at least kissed. Or there would have been some sort of sexual attraction and tension. Not so with this guy. Like I mentioned already, I felt affection for him but only as one brother to another.
It’s unclear to me how he got corrupted or led astray. It does seem to be easier to be led astray before we awake and it’s possible he feel under the influence of some darker power and temporarily forgot who he was, becoming a demon for a time. He had been bonded to the man, possibly for a long time. It’s hard to say. I left him in the forest - his home and one of mine. I’m sure we’ll meet again someday, although I have no idea when or under what circumstances.
***
