Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  I took a break from the Imaginal for a few weeks, largely because I felt like I was being drawn out of myself and needed to go back to the basics of a meditation practice. Also, I traveled up to northern Michigan at Christmas time to visit my mother. While I was there, she experienced a fainting spell due to problems with her blood pressure meds and spent three days in the hospital. I was there when she fainted and stayed with her until the paramedics arrived, driving to meet her in the emergency room at the hospital. I ended up spending most of Christmas Day with her there and a good chunk of the following two days. This will sound clinical but the experience gave me the opportunity to really observe my consciousness, taking particular note of the effects of adrenaline and trauma. By employing the tools of my spiritual practice, I was able to stay with the ‘baseline’ of awareness, watching the ways my consciousness, in the location of my soul, morphed from moment to moment. I re...

  I took a break from the Imaginal for a few weeks, largely because I felt like I was being drawn out of myself and needed to go back to the basics of a meditation practice. Also, I traveled up to northern Michigan at Christmas time to visit my mother. While I was there, she experienced a fainting spell due to problems with her blood pressure meds and spent three days in the hospital. I was there when she fainted and stayed with her until the paramedics arrived, driving to meet her in the emergency room at the hospital. I ended up spending most of Christmas Day with her there and a good chunk of the following two days. This will sound clinical but the experience gave me the opportunity to really observe my consciousness, taking particular note of the effects of adrenaline and trauma. By employing the tools of my spiritual practice, I was able to stay with the ‘baseline’ of awareness, watching the ways my consciousness, in the location of my soul, morphed from moment to moment. I re...

  The beings in the Imaginal are bemused by us humans. To them, we seem so hyperactive, so driven. We are accustomed to living in time and thus are always mindful that our time is limited. This tends to make us frantic, compelled to accomplish as much as possible before it’s too late. The non-humans in the Imaginal have no such compunction to get as much done as quickly as possible. There is no time there and consequently they don’t feel rushed to do anything. They find our mania peculiar because they know there is no reason to rush. There is all the time in the world. Today, I was back at the shadowy crossroads, the same place I was yesterday when I took leave of the man I’d been ‘helping.’ I felt the same despair that I felt yesterday as well. It’s a despair based on being overwhelmed. The darkness of humanity’s ‘negative karma’ is daunting. There is so much to work through. So much suffering, so much hurt, so much wrong to be redressed. It feels insurmountable. As I stood there ...

  I failed. I seem to need regular reminders of my fallibility during these excursions into the Imaginal. I guess they keep me humble. The overriding message lately has been, “There is nothing you need to do except breathe and stay in your belly.” Nevertheless, I’m human and I have an ego and I therefore can’t resist identifying with the experiences in the Imaginal and believing that there is something about *me* that’s making things happen. Well, I guess in a way that’s true but the something has nothing to do with my actions or abilities; rather, it has to do with simply being present. This is something that anyone who meditates or engages in a spiritual practice can “do.” Yesterday, I drawn back to the African American man and also his murderers. It was a difficult meditation because the holding of space involved holding the deep and painful schism that causes the violence and hatred to erupt in the first place. As humans, we split. It’s a primitive defense, maybe the most primi...

  I’m pretty worn out. These forays into the Imaginal are draining. I feel like I’ve just attended one of my Ridhwan retreats. There is this certain kind of fatigue that sets in after a spiritual retreat when ‘muscles’ I haven’t worked are spent. It is different from physical or even mental fatigue; it’s the fatigue of the three centers working in concert with each other. The Imaginal allows for a hyper-real experience because all three centers are firing simultaneously. This doesn’t happen in everyday life very often because usually I’m only nominally using the mind/heart/belly subtle sensing. Usually, I’m just using my physical and emotions senses, maybe with a dash of subtle sensing thrown in. This is the opposite. Instead of mostly using my physical and emotional senses, I’m using the subtle senses full tilt. Moreover, I am working and working hard to be open to everything that is occurring. It’s intense and tiring. It’s a good thing my meditations are only 40 minutes long beca...

  I keep getting reminded how naive I am about these journeys in the Imaginal. Whoever is in charge (that a partial jest) seems to be sending me on progressively more challenging forays. The one that started a few days ago is no exception. Remember how at first I wasn’t sure about the race of the man I was sent to help? He was caked in white clay or wax - I couldn’t tell. It took me a while to realize he’s African American. The white clay/wax was sort of a red herring at first but it finally became clear this morning what it was. Yesterday, while I meditated, I was surprised that he was still with me. I thought the reason I’d been brought to him was to reunite him with his daughter. But when I sat down to meditate, he was there. His body was mostly shrouded in darkness and I could just see his back and torso. I tried looking at his face to see his eyes but was somewhat taken aback when I realized his eye sockets were black. They sort of shone with shining blackness so they weren’t ...

  Even after a year, I still waffle between thinking I’m hallucinating and trusting that at least some truth is being revealed to me by way of the Imaginal. Today was no exception. I started out thinking that it was all in my head (which, I suppose, it is. Or at least, it’s in my soul which appears mostly within my body awareness.)  You’ll recall from yesterday’s entry that I encountered the man who was worried about his daughter (or at least I think it was his daughter) because he’d died, leaving her alone. He took up residence within my soul and I could feel the patterns of tension in his body within mine. It’s clear when this happens that the tensions aren’t mine, although they do have some impact on my experience. I tend to feel slightly numb emotionally when the soul that is occupying my own is numb. It’s not bad, just noticeable. This morning, my meditation was just a regular meditation at first. Gradually, though, I became more aware of his experience in my body. I lear...