Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  It was quiet for the past few days during my meditations. I thought today would be the same but I received a visitor towards the end of my sitting meditation. The visitor appeared as a corpse lying in a gauzy, white cocoon. It didn’t take me long to realize the cocoon was a coffin. The inside of the coffin was lighted, though, which struck me as odd but I soon came to understand the reason: The soul/corpse was terrified of the Black and resisting entry. The corpse’s skin was greenish and slimy, evidence of decay. When I touched the body, it was slippery. I’ve had such encounters before and wonder if the soul is still so attached to their body that they stay inside it even as it decays. The appearance of the corpse was androgynous. At first, I tried to perceive its gender, trying to peg it as male or female. I soon realized this was a body of a male-to-female transgender person. She had long, stringy hair and her body was slender. I don’t know how old she was when she died but her...

  I’ll never get over how some of these experiences are hyper-real, more than just visual because all sensing centers are active so there’s seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, absorption, sensing, and even smell (sometimes). Today, I became aware of a giant, ancient tree on the crest of a hill in the wintertime. It was dusk and the sky was a diffuse blue. The trees branches spread far and wide before me. Because it was ostensibly winter, it had no leaves. Something about the blue color, though, reminded me of the color of the river of souls I sometimes encounter. The blue is always the same and I’ve come to associate it with the in-between realm that souls transit after life. There was a lurching change of orientation as I realized the tree was actually the Ashvattha and the reason its branches were bare was because they weren’t branches but roots. The Tree of Life’s roots reach into the in-between realm of souls and its branches reach underground - in this case, they reach into t...

  This was a disturbing meditation that taught me about splitting and its resolution after life. First, I became aware of the soul of a boy, probably in his early teens. He appeared ghostly and was drawn to me for reasons that I soon understood. When I saw him, I also saw another soul. This was of an old boy or, more precisely, a young man. There was history between these two, probably of the homosexual variety. However, there was also violence between them and I wondered if the older boy had been responsible for the younger one’s death. It wasn’t a harmonious relationship in other words. The ghostly boy approached the ghostly young man. I could feel something inside him and, because I was holding the space, it was inside me. It burrowed out of his/my chest like a black beetle. This thing feasted from within. It was not beneficial. It was definitely parasitic. It was all I could do to tolerate the sensation/experience of this repulsive creature emerging from within him/me. I was mi...

  I’ve had more practice simply sitting with whatever is present for the past couple mornings. I find that my attention is drawn to a place in my body that feels resistant. I stay with the resistance and something is revealed. I think I spend a lot of time resisting being aware of things and I wonder if we’re taught from a young age to ignore and resist anything that doesn’t have to do with the physical world. The problem is that we’re both physical and nonphysical beings. You have to give both credit. And, in a way, they aren’t really separate; it’s just that we’re taught to view the physical/nonphysical as a dichotomy. I’ve been curious about so-called negative karma. It seems to be part of all of these journeys and I have been wondering how it gets dealt with because it seems like most of the time, people die without working through their negative karma. So, it accumulates and is pretty toxic. In fact, if you’ve read these entries, it is toxic. Today, I got a better understandin...

  I got chastised again by the Woman in White. I’ve had distracted meditations for the past few days and only figured out this morning that I was resisting something painful that wanted to arise into my consciousness. At first, I thought it was something personal to me but as I sat with it, I realized that it had nothing to do with me or my experience. As I looked into the resistance, I saw that I was surrounded by a host of souls of the dead. Now, if you’ve been reading these entries, you know that the souls of the dead I usually encounter are either anonymous or are trapped due to something that happened to them or they inflicted upon themselves. This time, though, the souls didn’t fit into either category. These souls were not ‘stripped down’ to anonymity. No, each one was distinct and still very close to their living personality. Further, they were filled with negative emotions. They appeared pretty horrific with whitened eyes and screaming, distorted faces filled with agony, d...

  “A Black Bodhisattva” I’ve had a few journeys in January but haven’t written them down in here because mostly they’ve been about sitting in Presence, both in the physical world and other realms, sometimes accompanied by others like me.  Today, I found myself in a dark cave. Being in blackness is a hallmark of my journeys lately. I’ve realized that I can see in the blackness even though, well, everything is black. I never realized that it’s possible to discriminate between different ‘shades’ of black. This doesn’t mean the ‘shades’ are different colors or lighter or darker; they’re all black. So, there is no difference. And yet there is. This seems weird and contradictory but it feels important. More than important, it feels necessary.  Humanity has created a vast, dark basement of suffering and conflict and negative karma filled with all manner of tortured beings. Being able to see in the darkness is required. Even more important is the ability to stay in touch with the...

  The mystery deepens. I haven’t been having the usual journeys lately. You know, the ones where I meet a soul that is trapped and help to free it. These may be over, for now at least. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been journeying, though. When I’ve been invited lately, my ‘job’ has been to hold the space, maintaining the channel between the depth of Being and wherever I happen to be. This seems to be a necessary function, one that allows transformation to happen. So, I’m still a catalyst of sorts. I get the sense there aren’t many beings like me who have developed this capacity and we are in demand. The feeling is that simply by being present wherever I am, I am helping things to unfold. In this sense, I understand what ‘they’ mean when they say that we are doing the Work for all beings. It’s not just a quaint saying. Today, I awoke with a heavy heart that didn’t quite feel like my own. I don’t quite understand what was going on, just that the feeling in my heart wasn’t exactly...