Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  The pieces of the puzzle are coming together very slowly. Yesterday’s WTF experience makes a little more sense now. The ‘gift’ that the woman bestowed wasn’t for me but for all beings, or at least all animals (maybe.) The ‘opal’ seems to have opened a new portal of experience for me, one that allows me to ‘travel’ into new realms. These realms are beyond the human ones. I now think that the gift from the woman (the white/black opal) allows me to take different forms so that I appear differently to different entities. In particular, it makes me appear as an animal of the same species when I meet non-human animals.  This morning when I meditated I met another shaman but this one wasn’t human; it was a whale (a humpback, I think.) The whale was studying me with an unreadable expression in its eye. As soon as the whale spotted me, I could feel my outward shift to that of a whale so that I’m pretty sure I appeared as a whale to him. We were underwater (of course) in a blue sea. I...

  Another meditation, another WTF moment. This morning when the eye opened, I was looking at living stone that glittered with colors of midnight blue, purple and black. I was in an archway that opened into a dark chamber. The chamber reached so high I couldn’t see the ceiling but the walls were of the same beautiful stone. There was a creature of pure blackness inside. It was immense, at least the size of a brontosaur and shaped much the same. It took me a while to realize the creature had three heads. One was the ‘dinosaur’ (actually, a serpent head but not the head of viper or poisonous snake), one was birdlike (horrific in a way, somewhat skeletal with huge, penetrating eyes and greasy feathers) and the last was mammalian (not like any one mammal, sort of a cross between a buffalo and a bear.) The bird head was most interested in me and leaned down close, its glittery eyes searching me closely. It could see inside me and I knew this was a test. If it didn’t like what it saw, I w...

  Time doesn’t apply to these experiences. Sometimes, the guides or shamans I encounter are in the present, sometimes in the future and sometimes in the past…even the very distant past. This morning, I had an encounter with an early human, probably not homo sapiens nor even Neanderthal. They appeared even earlier, although apparently their ‘primitive’ development didn’t have any impact on their ability to access the Imaginal. If true, the implications are very interesting. It took me a while to figure out what was going on and I still don’t understand completely. In the end, I decided that I was being used as an intermediary, a messenger of sorts. The shaman of this early humanoid race was male and not very old but he was obviously not new at this. At first, I found myself staring into his face, more apelike than human but possessing intelligence and awareness and sensitivity. It was eerie and forced me to revise my understanding of what it means to be human. Clearly, humanity enc...

  Today, I saw intense orange and purple when the eye opened. At first, I thought I was gazing upon a jewel but soon realized it was the colors of a vivid sunset. I was standing in a conifer forest on the shores of a lake. The sky to the west was ablaze with color, turning the still water liquid crystal. I looked down and found an otter looking up at me from these limpid waters. Beside the otter was a canoe. In the canoe was an old man, a shaman. He was wearing furs and a headdress reminiscent of an otter. The otter was his spirit guide. All around us, the forest and waters were alive with spirits. This was a paradise, a spirit world filled with mystery and the realm of imagination. It was also a home, a home to these people far away from the contamination of white people. A haven. I bowed to the otter, the man and the spirits. I was humbled to be called here. I knew that it was a gift not lightly bestowed to be invited, as a white person, into this holy realm and I was profoundly ...

  The trend continues: A guide finds me, I find the one (or ones) they are looking for and then the guide takes them on their way. If it is the job of these guides to lead the souls of the dead onto their destination (wherever that might be), I don’t understand why they can’t find the souls on their own? It may be that they usually can but sometimes they need help because the soul is stuck? It does feel like I enter a different liminal space when I am led to the ‘lost’ souls. This other liminal space is related to the Absolute because depthless black is almost always involved in some way. Today while I meditated, I found myself standing on the edge of a high cliff overlooking a vast canyonland. The colors of the earth and sky were strange. The earth was sometimes banded with blue and the sky was sometimes banded with earthtones. It was like earth and sky had become mixed together; it was beautiful and also other worldly. Beside me stood a birdlike figure. He was both man and bird, ...

  I can’t say anything with certainty but it seems like these encounters are related to the so-called eye of the heart. When I am meditating, it feels like a portal–or eye–opens in my heart center and suddenly I ‘see’ things I can’t when I’m not meditating. (Or usually can’t, at least. As you know, I sometimes have these encounters when I wake from sleep in the middle of the night.) The eye is both objective and personal. It’s objective in that it would happen to anyone in my same position; i.e., one who is somewhat disidentified from the personality. Once the ego is not always the center of awareness, other things are possible. The eye is also personal in that my own personal essence is present during these experiences. Sometimes, it’s at the fore and sometimes it’s just implied. That said, it is not like I am making anything happen so I can’t claim responsibility. Who makes the decisions about what I see? I have no idea. It’s up to the Divine, I suppose. Today, the eye opened and...

  This morning I found myself in a somewhat familiar place. A sickly green light pervaded the stone chamber and in the center was a glowing green sarcophagus. It was empty. There was something about the light that I could tell would infect anything that came in contact with it. It is like the greenish light carried a contagion within it and nothing would be spared. After a while, I realized that the chamber opened into a short tunnel that led to the ocean. I walked down it and found myself on a rocky ledge overlooking the water. Waves rolled in, deep blue with white froth. The cobalt blue and white reminded me of Griffin because, in the past, these colors have been present before I have met with him. I got briefly hopeful but there was no sign of him. After standing on the ledge watching the violent waves for a while, I spotted a figure out in the water. She was suspended over the surface of the water, walking upon it much like the story of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee. As she appro...