Imaginal Journeys in the Underworld

  Last night, I could feel the souls of dozens, possibly hundreds of people, pressed up against me. They were huddled against me, seeking solace and warmth and light. We were in a vast, calm, beautiful forest. Night was falling and the trees around us were still, silent. The trail we were on wound through the wood. The evening was mild. It was comfortable. I was unafraid. This wasn’t a frightening situation as far as I could tell so why were so many crowded around me? I don’t know for sure but I suspect the answer has to do with darkness, my lack of fear of it and my ability to ‘see’ in the dark. I was deeply touched by the faith all of these people put in me. Me, someone who is really nothing special apart from my comfort with darkness. Maybe I undervalue the importance of being alone in darkness, of meeting it, welcoming it and stepping into it? This morning when I meditated, I was back in the dark forest. The people were still around me, drawn to me. Well, not me but to my light...

  The past week or so has been pretty quiet on the Imaginal front, largely because my experience has been focused on the physical world and my place within it. I’ve realized that I have given enough focus to the internal and now it’s time to focus on the external world. I can’t remember if I went into this in my entry on Feb 2, 2022 but I really wrestled with my super ego and entrenched ego. I saw that I’ve been too closed, too rejecting of the outside world. Too ready to dismiss it as fucked up and holding nothing of interest to me anymore. This is not healthy. It’s perpetuating the same split I’ve been railing against in the Imaginal and it’s a closed, rather than open, position. If I’ve learned anything over the past many years, it’s that the heart’s natural state is one of openness. Love is open and free and seeks to join, not close off or reject. This attitude needs to be allowed both when working with the inner realms and the outer world. I’ve been closed off for too long. I...

  (I hope you realize that I try not to disparage myself too much for these accounts. As I’ve noted before, they sound pretty corny when I’m writing them down but the experiences themselves are anything but corny. Such is the way with encounters in the symbolic realm.) I realized this morning that I got part of it wrong yesterday: Originally, when the sheep demon/lost soul found me, it was the human soul who appeared as the sheep. The demon I didn’t encounter again until yesterday and he showed up in the classic way one would expect; i.e., red skin, horns, wings. So, to recap, much of the work of January 31 and February 1 was with the human who was taking himself to be a demon and his demon companion. I took the human soul away and left it under the protection of the old god’s wolves and then went back to the demon, leaving him eventually in the gold and white city, restored to his angelic form. Today, I found myself back with the wolves in the winter realm where I’d left them guar...

  I don’t write about all of my experiences during meditation because some of them are so brief that I don’t think they merit recording. Yesterday and today, though, was a little different. I’m still focusing on non-doing during my meditation which means that, after initially centering my concentration in the belly, I ‘let go’ and just sit without concentrating on anything. There is always the risk of getting drawn into thoughts and fantasies with this kind of meditation but generally I am able to remain unconcentrated and uncarried away. If something shows up during my meditation, my practice is to acknowledge it but not do anything, neither moving toward it nor pushing it away. Yesterday when I was sitting, I became aware of a tormented human soul that at first appeared as a sort of demonic caricature of a sheep or goat. I acknowledged it, inviting it to remain as long as it needed. It soon became clear that the entity was really two: One human soul and that of a ‘demon.’ It make...