November 13, 2025

 Was I punked by a rich, white woman on a shamanic tourist visa?

I guess I will never know but, in hindsight, that sure seems like what happened. If you’ve read these entries (you poor thing!), you’ll know that I sometimes encounter the souls of people who aren’t dead. I think that happened this morning.

During meditation, I became aware of a curious creature. It appeared to be like one of those dumb ‘drinking bird’ novelty toys from the 1970s. (I thought they were so cool back then!) This ‘novelty toy,’ however, was life-sized and completely black. It looked just like the toy; in other words, it wasn’t a living thing. I’m pretty sure it represented the ego structure of the woman to whom it belonged. This was how her ego appeared (to me, at least) in the in-between realms.

The bird toy was a good structure for her ego, it turned out, because after sitting with the silly, life-sized toy for a while, I realized that its function was to give form to her inner self. Looking at it, I began to perceive her ‘true self’ locked inside the toy. This ‘true self’--I used quotation marks because it wasn’t really true, just more true than the self presented by the ego structure–lacked any structure. It was like formless, white liquid and reminded me of the goo inside a butterfly’s chrysalis.

The inner goo contained a lot of pain. This makes sense because a person who lacks any sort of structure is a person in a lot of suffering. It’s like her ‘true, inner self’ was completely flabby and hapless, utterly devoid of the ability to hold itself upright or stand up for itself. As a result, she developed a hard shell to encapsulate this inner self but that didn’t really fix the problem. Deep down at least a part of her knew that she lacked any structure or inner support. 

Thinking her dead, I felt compassion for her predicament and sat with her. I don’t want to make it sound like I did anything because I didn’t but I have noticed that my presence usually has an effect on the souls I meet. In this case, it seems like just my being with her helped and slowly the bird toy structure dissolved. At first, there was terror as the structure dissolved but I encouraged her to stay steady. As she calmed, the goo slowly transformed into a silvery light. This light began to take the shape of a woman.

In a few minutes, the silver light had condensed and the woman finally had a form without the need of that silly bird toy structure. She was made of silver and black. I have met women like her–I’m thinking in particular of a former coworker–who remind me of her. They tend to be tightly-wound and neurotic. If I had met her in person, I’m sure I would have avoided her at all cost but things are different in the in-between realms and I had more patience. Plus, even if a person is neurotic, it’s always heartening to see them overcome a crippling issue. Such was this experience: I got to witness her taking her first tentative steps without that damned bird structure.

Being now made of silver and black light, it was relatively easy for her to dissolve into the Absolute. At this point, I hadn’t yet realized that she wasn’t dead because I was expecting to emerge into the Crossroads but was instead surprised to find we’d appeared somewhere else completely. 

I was confused for a couple of reasons. First, I was confused by the location–why weren’t we in the Crossroads? And, second, I was confused by the woman because her form hadn’t changed after passing through the Absolute. Most souls transform after they pass through the Absolute and look quite different in the Crossroads. In hindsight, I’m sure this was because her physical body wasn’t dead. If she had been deceased, we would have ended up at the Crossroads and she most certainly wouldn’t have looked the same.

I should point out that it’s not exactly true that she hadn’t changed. Instead of being composed of silver and black light as she had on the other ‘side’, now she appeared just like a regular person: A white woman who was probably in her forties.

The place was familiar because I’d visited here before; it was a sacred realm for indigenous peoples. This confused me. Why would we be here? Neither of us were indigenous. Further, I could tell that we weren’t exactly welcome there. It was like the realm found our very presence distasteful and wanted us gone. So, if we didn’t belong there and we weren’t indigenous, why the fuck were we there??? 

I only had to wait a minute or two for the reason to make itself clear and learning it made me feel a little bitter and a little used.

A shaman–who was most certainly indigenous and who most certainly did belong there–appeared before us. He seemed to know the woman and also seemed to be expecting her. I looked from him to her, not getting why they were together. I had no desire to linger there, though, and beat a hasty retreat, returning to the simplicity of my meditation and allowing them to do whatever it was they were up to. I was only too happy to be gone and rid of the woman.

With some time to think about it, I am pretty sure this rich, white woman was tripping on some sort of drug. Ayahuasca, maybe? I believe she had hired a shaman to serve as a guide to help her with a personal issue. And guess who showed up to help her? Just considering the possibility makes me feel ill. I really hope I’m wrong about this but it sure does look like I was tricked into helping a rich, white woman work through her psychological issues.

Ugh.

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