Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  I hope you realize that I’m holding my experiences in the Bardo with as much skepticism as you are, dear reader. I know the obvious thing is that these are hallucinations, the product of my overactive imagination. It’s entirely possible that this is the case. Still, they keep happening every morning when I meditate. This morning was no different. I was meditating when I ‘saw’ the bare thigh and lower edge of a tunic of a statue in repose. The image gradually solidified in my mind until I realized it was a cement angel on the lid of a sarcophagus. The angel was a very beautiful young man, his wings spread beneath him. I was in a crypt in a cemetery in the middle of city, It’s hard to say exactly when this was supposed to be, just that it’s in the too far distant past. I could tell it was late fall or early winter and it was nighttime and cloudy. I knew that I supposed to remove the lid of the sarcophagus because the soul I’d been summoned to help lay within. I gently slid it backw...

Another morning and another inexplicable trip to the Bardo. The experiences sure run the gamut! Today, I was deep in the north woods, helping indigenous souls. Most of the time, I can piece together clues from what I’m seeing and guess at what happened to the souls. This morning, the first experience is a mystery, although it does have a certain coherence. I can only guess at what it means. Sitting down to meditate, it wasn’t long before I am in a canoe on a deep lake. It is nighttime and before me is a wooded promontory. It is cold and cloudy but there is diffuse light penetrating the clouds from the moon. The canoe skims across the water, bringing me to the shore of the promontory. I get out. The forest is quite lovely, tall deciduous and conifers tower overhead. The lake is calm, its waters dark blue. I walk through the woods along the rocky shore until I see a fire. I approach and sit down, conscious that there are lightly glowing spirits in the trees peeking down at me. I ignore t...

Now I’m back to thinking I’m making all this up. It’s possible that I’m free-associating and my mind is developing a “story” on its own. It’s very bewildering. Still, I have a sense in my body that there is truth to what I’m seeing when I meditate, even if it’s not necessarily the literal truth. Today, when I meditated, the first thing I saw in my mind was a lemon. I stayed with the image and gradually realized the lemon was on a lemon tree. I was standing on the second floor of a villa facing a pair of French windows that were ajar. Before me was a balcony and the branches of the lemon tree were overhanging the balcony, so overgrown that the branches were pushing through the open windows. The lemon I was seeing was hanging on a branch in front of me. I looked around and realized I was standing inside a moonlit bedroom. The villa was old and quite grand with marble floors. There was a bed nearby and at first I believed the bed was empty, than realized there was a form on it. There was ...

I continue to be surprised, touched and shaken by the interactions I am having in the Imaginal/Bardo. This morning was no exception. As you know from my previous entries, I have been waffling back and forth, not sure what to make of these experiences. Is it all in my head or is there something else going on? I don’t have an answer because my experiences are subjective and therefore I can’t rule out that I’m making it all up. If this is the case, though, my unconscious is surprisingly inventive at presenting me with situations that stun and amaze me. This morning when I sat down to meditate, I was mostly convinced that I’ve been hallucinating. This conviction didn’t prevent me from entering the Bardo, though. After a few minutes, I became aware of a giant plant with large, spiky leaves. It took me a moment to realize that this wasn’t a giant plant at all but a blade of grass seen up close. Rather than being on the usual human scale, I was viewing the grass from an insect’s perspective. ...

I go back and forth over whether I’m hallucinating or imagining things. I can feel the truth of what I'm experiencing and yet my mind doubts everything with a vengeance. I typed up a brief synopsis of the events of the past several weeks last night and then blushed when I read through it. The ravings of a mad man! I feel like I’ve seriously taken leave of my senses to believe in this stuff. So, here I am back in the skeptical camp. Nonetheless, I will regale you with tales of my delusions yet again this morning. ;-) After sitting down to meditate, I found myself back in the Bardo/Imaginal. This time, I was sitting in the grass on a hillock overlooking a vast, nighttime savannah. There was no moon and the night sky was deep and dark, dotted with stars. Around me lay a pride of lions. They were asleep except for the dominant male. I sat up and approached him, wrapping my around his neck and burying my face in his mane. He smelled good. I pulled back and bowed to him and then we were ...

Today was a relief. My soul was exhausted from the intensity of the past two weeks and I just needed to rest. When I began meditating, I found myself in a beautiful cave with layers of gray, white and blue rock. I was standing in the middle of a small stream and there was an opening to the cave before me through which soft morning sunlight was streaming. I could tell right away that this wasn’t the realm of the Bardo because, while beautiful, everything was decidedly normal. It was about as close to the physical world as you could get. I waded through the cave toward the sunlight, feeling chilled. It was a cold morning, probably wintertime, although the climate was warmer than Michigan. Griffin was waiting for me when I exited the cave. (He really is big!) He greeted me warmly with a bear hug. His clothing was rough and he had a lot of red stubble on his face. He looked tired, too, and was older than he’d appeared in the Imaginal/Bardo. In short, he was decidedly normal. Not particular...