Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  This morning, I opened my “eyes” and saw that I was in an ornate throne room of an opulent palace. Seated before me on a gilded throne was a man. He was peering curiously down at me with his chin on his hand. At first, I thought the palace was royal, as in the realm of Being, but I soon realized that it was just another prison. “Why do you stay in here, locked up and alone,” I asked the man, “when there is a vast world outside these walls?” Extending my hands, I gestured to the crimson sunlight pouring in from the vaulted windows above. Mountains, their slopes covered in dark forests, could be seen. “I stay because I am safe from them,” the man replied, pointing to a swirling cloud of black, winged creatures that spun angrily in the air around the outside of the palace. I looked at them and they seemed to alternate between ruby-eyed dragons and red-eyed ravens. There was something about them that linked them to this man. I don’t know exactly what their story was but I knew their fate

  As you know, I’ve been less enthralled by the Imaginal recently, mostly because I feel drawn to focus on the world of the manifest while I still have the luxury of a body. This doesn’t mean that I’ve become more materialistic. Hardly! It’s just that I’m listening to the pulse of Being in my physical life. I feel less compelled by instinctual desires and my superego and more content to simply listen and feel what life has to offer. In this way, it’s really not so different from my Imaginal experiences. I find we exist in an ecosystem all the time that is both external and internal. We are jostled, visited, preyed upon, coaxed, observed and tempted by all manner of creatures. The compelling urge is to live in harmony with our ecology, both manifest and unmanifest. If we humans would just spend more time listening and watching and feeling before acting, all of us would be better off. The Earth wouldn’t be quite as assaulted by our hunger for objects that never really satisfy us and our

  This morning I found myself in a small chapel. There was a stained glass window to my right through which a colored pattern of red, yellow and blue light shone. It seemed modern, although I’m not exactly sure, reminding me of the Catholic retreat center’s chapel in Clarkston where my Diamond Approach group meets. There was an old man in a white robe kneeling before an altar with a simple silver cross. He didn’t seem to be aware of me. Next to him was a coffin covered by a white shroud. I was curious who was in the coffin and peered inside, realizing that it was none other than the man kneeling beside me. The man didn’t seem to be aware of me and continued praying earnestly. His face was austere, almost mask-like. He was completely drained of color such that his face and hands and hair were all white. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, especially because the man wasn’t aware of my presence. I kicked around the chapel, peering at things. The cross kept drawing my attention becaus

  This morning I first became aware of a foggy forest. I was standing before a rugged ravine. The twisted trunks of trees lay strewn about as if they had been ripped from the ground with great force. It took me a while to realize that I was also looking at a big troll. She was hunched over and her grayish skin blended in very well with the rocky ravine behind her. Her head was enormous and so was her nose. Though she could not be described as a lovely creature, she had her own innate charm. Her big, brown eyes were kind and there was a gentleness about her bearing that offset her somewhat formidable appearance.  When I was a kid and my sister was an exchange student in Sweden, sometimes she would send me postcards with artwork by Scandinavian artist, Rolf Lidberg, who specialized in illustrations of trolls. I loved these postcards so much that I collected them. This troll was reminiscent of these pictures, although also different. She was naked and her grayish brown body was covered in