Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  It’s been a while since I’ve had a journey. I don’t know why that is but I never seek out these journeys so I guess I’m not in control of when I have them. I don’t know who decides, probably no one. It’s probably more a case of the being available and being needed aligning. This morning I first found myself in a very green place. It was like a glade in the midst of newly-leafed sugar maples. The leaves were fresh and vibrant green, almost chartreuse in color. It felt like a near realm, sacred but not out of reach of humans, although I suspect they are mostly dead when they find themselves there. I stayed with my meditation and gradually sunk deeper into the ground. The earth below was completely black. This wasn’t the pure blackness of the Absolute, although it wasn’t separate from the Absolute, either. (Nothing can be truly separate from the Absolute, after all.) I was among many. They writhed around me, human and wormlike at the same time. They were blind but responded to my pr...

  Today, I found myself in a familiar place. I don’t know exactly why it felt so familiar but it has appeared in other journeys over the past few years. A forested realm that was verdant and beautiful, bursting with life. Simply being there was nourishing because even the air was succulent. There was a creature of golden yellow and green waiting for me. I suppose you could describe it as a dragon but it was more than that. Also, I felt like I knew it somehow, although I’m not sure why. I sat with the place, the forest, the creature, eventually opening myself so the creature could show me where I was needed. As soon as I did so, I was transported to another realm entirely. A shadowy place that felt underground, the beings there were humanlike but had horns on their shaggy heads and glowing yellow eyes. Their faces were satyr-like and so were their bodies. Their skin was blue and their hair black. Despite the link between satyrs and sex, there wasn’t any sort of erotic charge so I ha...

  A brief encounter that didn’t seem to have to do with the soul of a dead person but I suppose it may have been a person. I can’t be sure. I’ve seen creatures like this one before and have written about them here. They appear as black wolf-like creatures but their bodies are skeletal so they are like the skeleton of an anthropomorphic wolf covered in black fur. I felt empathy for this creature as I regarded him. I could tell he was suffering. He told me (without words) that he was tired of being a creature of fear and darkness and wanted only to give up, to die, to surrender. I cradled him in my arms and he hugged me tightly, crying. (I was crying, too.) Contact with me brought the annihilation of the Absolute but also release and rebirth. When we emerged from the blackness of the Absolute, I realized I was wearing a woman’s body and I was holding an infant in my arms. We were in a milky white pool of water. The Woman in White appeared and started laughing as soon as she saw me. “...

  I’ve had a few other experiences lately but haven’t recorded them. They have followed a familiar trajectory, though. I’ve realized that, while I have by no means worked through all of my personal baggage, I’ve worked through the basic ego issues and now barriers are relatively few and far between. Because of this, I’m aware that most of the time when I feel a tension or numbness or pinching or pain somewhere in my chest area, it’s not my stuff that I need to look into; rather, it’s another soul’s conflict trying to get my attention. This feels like the definition of empathy if you consider the empathy is the attunement to the state of another. You don’t need to be physically in the presence of another; you just need to be open and available. Today, there was numbness around the top of my chest. I sat with it and found myself in a beautiful but eerie underground chamber that may also have been under the sea. It was black but there were pale beams of light here and there illuminati...

  This morning I let myself be open to the Imaginal for the first time in a long time. I don’t think this will be a habit because I feel like the thing I need most is to simply hang out in a space of non-doing. A lot happened! First, I became aware of a green and yellow place. It was sort of like a verdant, sundrenched forest. The green was the green of the Green Lataifa; i.e., compassion. And the yellow was the yellow of the Yellow Lataifa; i.e., joy. It’s beautiful that a realm can embody these expressions of Essence. I brought the Black Lataifa with me because it’s the aspect of Essence that I tend to embody for reasons I don’t entirely understand. The Black seems to open doorways, maybe because it dissolves everything. Nothing can stand up to the Black. That sounds harsh but it’s actually an expression of the deep love of the Absolute. By ‘destroying’ boundaries, it brings everything together and makes transformation possible. It is so deeply mysterious. Without it, nothing wou...

  I’ve been basically avoiding calls into the in-between realms lately. They still happen but I’ve only responded rarely. I’m in this place of being tired of teaching. I feel full of information and what I really need is to be empty. Meditation provides this emptiness. Maybe this urge is brought on by the busy world in which I live. I’m bombarded with information all the time and a lot of emotions as well from others. Americans–and probably everyone on the Earth right now–are noisy and chaotic. They spew all sorts of stuff all of the time without even realizing it. It’s exhausting. There isn’t any way to tune it out without tuning out the important stuff and I feel like I’m getting better at maintaining my equanimity, largely due to quiet meditations full of nothing. When I am called into the in-between realms, no surprise, the theme is death. Today was no exception. I found myself in a dark and gloomy wood of tall, straight trees. The feeling of despair was heavy here. Before me w...

  I don’t know why but this seems to be the week of teachers appearing during my meditations. Today, I was sitting and, as always, not seeking an experience. I became aware of a black flame arising from a fractured rock. It was not a pretty place, a burned-out and hellish landscape. A figure coalesced from the smoke, rising above me. Even though it looked evil, I didn’t feel any reaction to it and didn’t feel threatened. As you know, nothing is quite as it seems in the Imaginal and yet everything is knowable. Maybe not completely knowable but knowable to the extent of our capacity at the time. This figure had burning yellow-gold eyes. I was drawn to the light in them and soon found myself transported into a golden realm. I was at the bottom of a long, golden staircase with bodhisattavas sitting across from each other on each step. A golden figure stood before me, inviting me to ascend the stairway. I climbed and climbed, seeing a seated figure on a lotus throne (or at least what I ...