January 28, 2021
I was tired this morning when I meditated because I woke up early and was hungry, pretty much like yesterday. This time, I sat for a while, thinking that I wouldn’t be called into the Bardo. I was wrong. After a few minutes, I became aware of a vast, black, empty sea and a vast, black, empty sky overhead. A beautiful and poignant scene.
I was sitting in a small, golden sailboat, the only light coming from the soft glow of the boat’s timbers. I looked up and saw a hideous, black ‘monster’ rising up over the side of the boat; however, I could tell immediately this was no monster but a lost soul. I stood and helped to pull the monster into the boat. It had shaggy, thick and sodden hair and a deeply lined and malformed face.
As I always do, I asked who this was and she told me that she was ugliness and loneliness combined. I realized that the woman’s outward, ugly form was the way she saw herself, that she believed deeply that her ugly appearance was why she had been alone her whole life. When she died alone, she found herself likewise alone in this vast, black, empty ocean. It was a heartbreaking tale.
I did my best to convince her that there was nothing wrong with her, that this was a new opportunity. Now that she was dead, her soul was free and didn’t need to be defined by her past. I told her that I was there for her and she would never be forgotten; True Nature leaves no one behind.
This seemed to work because the sea and sky instantly brightened to blue. The sun was shining overhead and the boat rocked gently beneath us. She was no longer a monster but a handsome woman. When we looked toward the horizon, we saw that the sea wasn’t endless after all; there were shining white cliffs nearby. More significantly, the cliffs were lined with people. They were all waiting for her. Waiting to accompany her on the next stage of her journey. It was a deeply touching scene and we both cried.
The boat landed on the shore and we made our way up a trail on the cliffside, walking on soft sand, dune grass brushing against our legs. At the top, we hugged and then she turned and left with her friends.
I was happy and sat on the sand near the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea. Unlike earlier when the sea had been dark and empty, now it was filled with boats of all sizes and types. Seagulls called overhead, the sky was hazy blue and the sun was warm overhead. It was beautiful.
When I looked over to my right, there were a pair of legs with blood running down them. A woman dressed in a white shift stood next to me, bleeding from a nasty wound on her head. The blood was pouring down her body, soaking her garment and pooling in the sand at her feet. I knew she had been drawn to me after witnessing my interaction with the previous woman. This seems to happen a lot in these trips to the Bardo as you will notice if you read through these entries.
I stood and asked her to tell me her story. She was similar in some ways to the last woman in that she didn’t believe she was attractive. Further, she shared an inner loneliness. Unlike the previous one, though, she had not been alone in life. Quite the opposite. She seems to have had a domineering and abusive husband/partner who kept her in constant fear, even using the fear of what he might do to her children to keep her in line. She had lived a life in fear, never being able to flourish or find her own way. I’m not sure if she was murdered directly by her husband/partner or indirectly. She didn’t commit suicide, that was I could tell.
There was a grief inside her from not being met by a guide upon her entry into the Bardo. She had been heartbroken to discover there was no one waiting for her and this had only cemented her belief that she was destined to be alone and forgotten. I cried with her over this, telling her I had no idea why she hadn’t been met by a guide. She was looking in particular for her children there and I explained that they may not have died yet and therefore couldn’t meet her. Losing them had been the worst part of her death for her and she longed to be with them again.
When we looked up, there was a young boy waiting for her, her guide to the next phase of her journey. She cried out, reaching out to hug him. Even though he wasn’t her son, he reminded her of him and she felt instantly happier and more at ease about what was to come. I nodded and we hugged. Then she disappeared with her young guide.
***
I gazed out at the sea after she left, staring at the multitude of boats in the water. One drew my attention. It had an interesting structure on its bow. The image of the boat shifted as I stared at it, trying to understand what I was seeing. At first it looked like boat with a strange antenna then it looked like an antler and then it resolved itself into a dead tree with spreading, skeletal branches.
A tree? On a boat?
As I continued to examine it, I realized the tree wasn’t on the boat. My perspective shifted and I was now standing at the bow of a small, wooden boat in the middle of a flooded meadow. Before me, a huge, dead tree spread its empty branches. The place was fetid and misty and...spooky. As the boat nearer the tree, a voice warned me that what I was about to see was unpleasant.
It was an underwater burial site, bringing to mind ancient, pre-Colombian burials in the Americas I had read about. These were burials where the dead bodies were wrapped and submerged underwater in ponds or other bodies of water. This was clearly such a site and, when I stepped out of the boat, I found myself looking down at numerous bodies, bundled in mesh or netting, and staked to the ground to keep them beneath the surface of the water.
I was drawn to one such body, that of a young girl. When I approached her body, she was staring at me with sightless, white eyes. It was a startling discovery and I realized that she had been blind in life; her white eyes were not the result of decomposition.
I knelt down and unfastened the netting, pulling her body out of the water and carrying her toward the base of the dead tree where there was a small hummock overlooking the swamp. I lay her down on the grass and inquired gently about her history. She opened to me and I saw that she was a member of an indigenous tribe that treated her poorly, not recognizing what she was. To me, it was abundantly clear what she was a seer and a very powerful one at that. As she lay there, her body and the site around us began to change. Soon, we were sitting under the spreading bows of a living oak, its leaves brilliant green. The pond was no longer fog-enshrouded and dank but filled with huge clumps of grasses and alive with birdsong. The girl’s eyes were no longer cloudy white but shining with the pure, white light of True Nature.
She was a truth-seer, a very powerful being, far more powerful than I. Her power lay in her ability to see the truth of everything around her and it grieved me that she had not been properly recognized and trained in life. I got the sense that her life had been similar to my first one; i.e., short and brutal and full of difficulty and scarcity. Unlike mine, however, she had been mistreated and received very little love and care. She had been blind in life and hadn’t been helped much; she was basically on her own.
I guess this sort of blows a hole in the theory that indigenous tribes were more accepting of those with spiritual talents and of women in general. It’s hard to say what was going on in her tribe. It’s possible she’d lived at a particular challenging time in their history (much like my original clan) and they didn’t have the luxury of recognizing and properly training her. There may not have been an elder or shaman or other spiritual leader to teach her. It may just have been a very male-centric, macho sort of tribe. Who knows? What is clear is that she’d been neglected.
Unlike the previous two women, though, she didn’t seem deeply traumatized by her past and didn’t seem to have taken on the outcast baggage thrust upon her by her tribe. I think she’d always known on some level what she was, probably because of her powerful visions. In any case, there wasn’t much for me to do other than help her along her way. I helped her to sit up and did my best to confirm what she knew: She was powerful and blessed by True Nature. The path ahead of her wouldn’t necessarily be easy but she was definitely more than capable of finding her way. In fact, when we looked up, there was the same old wise woman in white furs and the ceremonial headdress whom I’d encountered on previous trips to the Bardo. She was waiting to take this young girl onward.
The girl stood and fixed me with her shining gaze. The light from her eyes was almost too bright to behold. We hugged and I assured her that we would meet again. I have a feeling that she will become an important part of my journey, although, of course, I don’t know for sure.
***
After the two had left, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was standing in a field drenched in the scarlet rays of the setting sun. The crimson was so vivid that it felt almost liquid. It instantly reminded me of my meditation of a few days ago when I’d found Griffin standing on the shores of the winter lake/sea with the crimson sun setting beneath leaden clouds.
Just thinking about Griffin brought him there. We were together again. He was so big and so handsome and powerful. I leaned against his big, hairy, sexy body. If I had been expecting a warm welcome, though, I was disappointed. He still seemed troubled and remote. I could sense into him and feel the conflict he was feeling. He felt torn, resistant to opening to me. The conflict centered around his present life where I sensed he is married or at least coupled and has a couple children. The memories of me and our connection are disturbing to him and he doesn’t know what to think.
The overriding message of this meeting was patience. It would take a while, maybe a very long time, before Griffin comes around. He is not engaged in an inner work school and may never be. If he is going to join me and become a full-fledged partner, he has a lot of work to do. There are some things I can do from my end but ultimately he needs to decide to move forward. It could be a very long time before we are fully reunited.
***
